Join Me @ The Mission Creek Permaculture Food Forest!!!

Hello all! And welcome back. In the last couple posts, we visited the Kelowna Farmers and Crafters Market, and then the Border Free Bees pollinator pasture just down the road.

Now, to end this weekend series, we will visit the Fair Vote BC protest (briefly) and then the Permaculture Food Forest at Mission Creek Park as well. Oh yeah, this was one satisfyingly busy day. I love volunteering all day long, for good causes, and I love getting my hands dirty in the soil too...

Before we got to go to the food forest, Allisa zipped us over to the Fair Vote BC protest. Although I do not entirely have faith in our government systems, and really consider myself an anarchist, I don't mind participating in such an event. I will show my support to those people who just want our democratic system to be more fair, I hope it works for them, and it is really fun having people honk at you, or yell that you are idiots. Either way, lots of fun!

Welcome to the food forest! This place has been designed to follow some permaculture principles, and as seen above, to mimic the structure of a forest (but with mostly edible plants). Elana Westers is the lovely lady who designed this place, and she is part of our permaculture group here too! Along with my teacher, Lucie, my ninja Ryan and our wise woman Allisa. A bunch of other new and cool people joined us today as well.

Let us take a tour, and explore some of the plants we found here! They are nearly all native, and everything here is edible in some shape or form!

Here is our friendly native ground cover, kinickinick. This is a traditional food and medicine of the native Sylix peoples, and it can be found all over the vally, including at Cedarville! It apparently is good when fried, but is super super bitter. I believe the Sylix people used the berries or leaves to smoke, like tabacco, and I think it has other medicinal properties too.

Hmmmm, I think I recall this pretty flower being one of many kinds of fruit on a single, small fruit tree here in the garden. I guess they are trying out the splicing of many fruit tree verieties onto one tree! How interesting, I can't wait to see when this small tree is tall and fruitful. Permaculture things can take a while.... but it will definately be worth it in the end!

We also see here some taller bushes in the food forest, as the stuff on the ground has not entirely grown in yet (it is early spring too). In front, I believe we have a dog rose, though I may be mistaken. The big spikey bush behind it is most definately our good friend Oregon Grape, the tall version (usually you find the short kind in the wild) and it is in full bloom too!

Ahh, in the first photo we have some mysterious plants that I forget about, and lots of grass that needs to be pulled. However, in the second and third photos, we can see some oregano coming up along with a nice sage plant too. I will harvest some of these guys before we leave, I am desperate for fresh spring greens and herbs!

Strawberry patches, what I think are lillies of some sort, and lemon balm! Oh, I love lemon balm so so soooo much! I can't wait to come back here in a month when everything is growing in full swing, since you are totally allowed to harvest from this place as much as you would like as long as you are mindfull not to take too much.

I took a couple pictures of some interesting plants I might want to add to my own collection, especially the honeyberry! That sounds soo delicious! Choke cherries are pretty yummy too, but not as much and they grow really tall and probably take a good amount of work. Luckily, I can get these guys just across the lake if I feel so inclined.

I also found this really interestingly decomposed leaf... the strangest things fascinate me, this thing was totally transparent and really neat. Id love to make art with it, but it was so fragile I let it fall back the the ground to decompose some more.

Oh yes the first harvest of the year. A food forest sure is a productive place, even in mid April! I got some sage, lots of chives and wild garlics, thyme, lemon balm and a lil bit of chocolate mint, as well as oregano! Honestly, I ate most of it well I was picking. I am a wierdo like that, I just eat herbs all the time. I am a supreme muncher, especially in the garden!

That is about it from that crazy awesome weekend, I thank you very much for joining me on such adventures! I hope you enjoyed our time at the Farmers Market, Pollinator Pasture and Food Forest. I had a really enriching time, socializing with good people and doing good things. I hope this might have inspired you as well, to see if there are similar projects going on wherever you are in the world!

Many thank yous for stopping by, stay tuned as I will be posting more about my permaculture course and other activities soon!