Here at Loving Spoonful we are in the planning stages for another Grow a Row campaign.

What is Grow a Row? The purpose of Grow a Row is to encourage growers (both full-time farmers and backyard or community gardeners) to grow an extra row of food for the express purpose of donation to emergency meal programs.

What does the campaign involve? Loving Spoonful staff and our volunteer Grow a Row Committee collect donated food at the Downtown Farmers Market from June-October, deliver food to 18 agencies that feed their clients, maintain the Acorn donation garden, and preserve surplus produce in our community kitchen workbees.  The campaign starts off in May with a seedling sale and launch party and wraps up in late October with a harvest party and fall cleanup event at the Oak Street Community Garden.

Why is Grow a Row important? Food costs are on the rise. In 2011 the price of fresh produce rose 16% from 2010 prices – making the purchase of healthy fresh food beyond the means of many Kingstonians.  Grow a Row makes more fresh produce available for low-income members of our community.  Last year we collected over 7000 lbs of fresh produce through the Grow a Row campaign! By preserving some of the donated produce that comes in during peak growing times – think tomatoes in September – we are able to extend the amount of fresh local food available to meal programs beyond the growing season.

How can you get involved? There are many ways to participate in the Grow a Row campaign, and we hope you will consider engaging in the way that suits you best.

For the green thumbs:

• Plant an extra row or container at home and donate the produce. Register your garden at any point  and then drop off food at the Downtown Farmers Market Tues & Thurs from 2-4:30 or Sat from 11-4:30 and join the total
• Help maintain the Acorn donation garden at Oak Street Community Garden, or help maintain the donation plot at the Community Garden where you have a plot
• Champion Grow a Row in your workplace by joining the Workplace Challenge – prizes for the workplaces with the highest levels of donation and participation per employee!

For the non-gardeners:

• Consider purchasing a Community Shared Agriculture share or produce from market vendors for donation to Grow a Row
• Volunteer to collect food at the Downtown Farmers Market and/or deliver donated produce to meal programs
• Lend your expertise to help with publicity, fundraising, outreach and event planning

Please help make the 2012 Grow a Row Campaign our biggest and best yet!!

For more information about Grow a Row please contact info[at]lovingspoonful[dot]org or call 613-546-4291 ext. 1871.

The City of Kingston has officially declared support for the Put Food in the Budget campaign! This campaign, sponsored by our friends at The Stop Community Food Centre, calls for the following two actions on the part of the Ontario government to address chronic hunger faced by thousands in our province:

1. An immediate increase of $100 per month Healthy Food Supplement for every adult receiving social assistance as a first step towards addressing the inadequacy of current social assistance benefits

2. A fair and transparent way of setting social assistance rates so that people can meet their basic needs and lead a healthy and dignified life

Learn more about the campaign here, and take a few moments to complete the Do the Math survey while you’re there – it is truly enlightening.

Loving Spoonful Community Kitchen Coordinator

Job Contract: 46 weeks starting February 6, 2012

Wage: $20/hour, 20 hours per week

Application Deadline: January 20, 2012 4pm

We are excited to be expanding our Community Kitchen programming in 2012, and are looking for a highly motivated person to join our staff in this role. Please see full details on the position and how to apply here.

Many thanks to the United Way/City of Kingston Community Investment Fund for making this position possible.

Loving Spoonful wishes to extend our gratitude to Chez Piggy, Chien Noir, Olivea and Pan Chancho – and diners like you – for supporting our inaugural Summer Lovin’ campaign. The funds raised will go to furthering Loving Spoonful’s food security work in our community, making sure that more people have access to fresh healthy food.

Look out for a similar winter promotional event coming your way in February or March 2012. In the meantime we hope you will continue to visit Kingston’s outstanding downtown restaurants and farmers markets in support of a vibrant local food system.

2011 has been an AMAZING season for Loving Spoonful’s Grow a Row campaign.

We are pleased to announce that we’ve surpassed our goal of collecting 5000 lbs of fresh local produce, and we still have 5 weeks of the campaign to go!!! All of the food collected by Grow a Row is delivered to 18 different emergency meal providers and shelters in Kingston – getting it to community members with little access to fresh healthy food.

Stop by our table at the downtown farmers market on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2-4:30pm and Saturdays from 11am-4:30pm to drop off your surplus fresh produce. Our team of fantastic volunteers will collect and deliver it to meal programs the same day!

Grow a Row has been getting great coverage in local media this season. Check out some of the links below to read more:

http://www.kingstonthisweek.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=3290406

http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=3291358

http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=3287675

http://www.thewhig.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=3202964

Questions? Contact our Grow a Row coordinator: kate@lovingspoonful.org; 613-546-4291 ext. 1871

A big THANKS to all the volunteers who helped make the Heirloom Tomato Tasting event at Saturday’s Fare on the Square a big success! As always, we couldn’t do it without your hard work and dedication. Thanks also to Kaitlin and Downtown Kingston! for asking us to participate – we appreciate your support of our many food justice projects and look forward to a continued partnership.

Just in case you missed it – over 25 varieties of tomatoes were on sample to market-goers this past Saturday at Fare on the Square. Honeywagon Farm, Patchwork Gardens, Okees Farm and Ravensfield Farm provided the tomatoes for the tasting. These fantastic local growers are regular contributors to the Grow a Row campaign, and we were happy to return the favour by sending eager tomato samplers their way to purchase their favourite tomato varieties. A great day was had by all!

Join Loving Spoonful in some fun, educational and tasty activities this Saturday, September 3rd!

Grow a Row Garden Tour at Bellevue House

Please join us for a stroll through one of the beautiful gardens that have been producing and donating food to the 2011 Grow a Row campaign. Bellevue House is a National Historic Site with a Victorian-style kitchen garden (also known as a walled foursquare garden).

This is a wonderful opportunity to tour a large natural garden that showcases period varieties of fruits, vegetables, herbs, flowers and medical plants. Such a garden would have provided most needs for the house. Fresh food was essential as canning processes had not been perfected, and it was not as simple as it is now to go out to buy one’s food.

Tour starts at 10:30 a.m. at Bellevue House, 35 Centre St., Kingston.
You can find more information on the Bellevue House gardens here: http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/on/bellevue/natcul/natcul4.aspx and more information on Grow a Row here: http://growarow.lovingspoonful.org/

Celebrate Local Food at Fare on the Square

Loving Spoonful will be hosting the free Heirloom Tomato Tasting table this Saturday at Fare on the Square!

Come to Fare on the Square from 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. and help Kingston’s Public Market Vendors and 12 downtown restaurants celebrate local food, local farmers and Kingston’s Public Market – the oldest continuously-running market in North America. Buy $2 vouchers to sample each restaurant’s offering made with local food! There will also be a corn roast.

Vendors at the Market are major contributors to Loving Spoonful’s Grow a Row campaign, and we are delighted to be involved in this event that honours the diverse and delicious food grown in our bioregion by those dedicated to preserving heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables. Information about Loving Spoonful, Grow a Row and the Community Gardens Network will be on hand for those interested in learning more and getting involved with our projects.

The Kingston Public Market is located in Springer Market Square behind City Hall at King and Brock Streets. Come by to say hello and try some tomatoes!

Join us this Tuesday, August 23rd at the Acorn garden (part of the Oak St. Community Garden) for a workbee, potluck and gardening workshop!

The workbee runs from 4-6pm and will include lots of harvesting. The potluck  starts at 6pm. Bring a dish to share, plus your own plate and cutlery, and meet  Loving Spoonful volunteers and staff. A free hand-on workshop on Seed Saving (7-8pm) will round out the evening.

Everyone is welcome to attend part or all of Tuesday’s activities. We hope to see you in the garden!

Hello friends and followers! The summer is passing quickly, and we have accomplished a lot so far. The following is a brief update on the various summer projects that Loving Spoonful staff and volunteers have been avidly engaged in on a weekly basis.

Grow A Row- Our campaign has reached over 1500lbs of food so far. As we strive for our summer goal of 5000lbs, we encourage anyone with surplus food from their gardens to drop it off at our stall at the Downtown Farmer’s Market on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 2-4:30pm, and Saturdays from 11am-4:30pm.

Community Harvest Market- The third season of the Community Harvest Market at the Wally Elmer Youth Centre in Rideau Heights is well underway. The market offers fresh produce, baked goods, jewelry, knitted crafts, and more! Each week a growing number of children join Rosie, our Food Education Assistant, for creative food-related activities. Rosie and the kids have also been growing a small garden on the Wally Elmer lawn, from which they will soon harvest tomatoes and cucumbers for their very own salsa. The activities are drop-in style, and we encourage new participants to join in the fun!

Acorn Garden- We have begun to see the fruits of our labour at the Acorn plot (Oak Street Community Garden)! So far we have harvested and donated peas, kale, swiss chard, tomatoes, coriander, basil, and garlic. Harvest of zucchinis, cucumbers, leeks, sweet potatoes and more are all rapidly approaching. To volunteer at the garden in the weeks to come, join us on-site every Tuesday evening from 4-8pm.

GROW Gardens- All four GROW project gardens are flourishing under the weekly care of our dedicated volunteers and are producing food for local meal programs. To check out these gardens, visit the front lawns of J.G. Simcoe, Rideau Public, Rideau Heights, or First Ave Public Schools. The brightly coloured kid-painted fences cannot be missed!

Community Kitchen Workbees- We’ve been making the connection between field and fork in our (almost) weekly community kitchen workbees. Participants have helped process fresh garden produce donated through Grow a Row into delicious things like pesto and freezer ready corn. Upcoming workbees will include tomato sauce and possibly salsa making – we’re just waiting for those tomatoes to roll in!

Food Reclamation-We continue to make weekly food deliveries to local meal programs, and we’re always looking for more people to help out in this way.

Kingston Community Gardens Network- The Network is growing just like our gardens! So far this season we’ve seen two new community gardens start up in our city, with a few others in the planning stages. We’ve also facilitated 9 free gardening workshops, with 3 more to go in the series. Check out the website for info on local community gardens, how to start a garden, and where to find our free workshops: kingstoncommunitygardens.ca

We’d like to thank everyone who has been involved in making these projects a success. Your hard work is appreciated! If you’re interested in getting involved in any of our projects, contact our volunteer coordinator: holly[at]lovingspoonful[dot]org or 613-546-4291 ext. 1871

This August, a portion of your meal purchase at participating restaurants will benefit Loving Spoonful, a community food organization working to enhance access to healthy food for all.

Participating restaurants:

Le Chien Noir:  http://www.lechiennoir.com/

Chez Piggy:  http://www.chezpiggy.com/

Pan Chancho:  http://panchancho.com/

Olivea:  http://olivea.ca/

Treat yourself. Feed your community.