Bellingham Gleaning Network

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End of season harvest projects -espeically summer fruit - Gathering the troops and supplies and venturing into the land of falling fruit to collect and process for preservation and storage as well as a crisp or two for the evening's celebrations!

Location: Bellingham
Members: 50
Latest Activity: Jan 29, 2023

2 members like this

Info

The vision for this group is to be in the flow of the season, anticipating the appropriate gleaning time for the various fruits of this abundant Bellingham, in order to be ready to take advantage of what nature provides freely. These projects could easily evolve into a community cottage industry based on integrity and barter, where tedious work is made efficient and social by working together as a community. Not everyone needs to own a cider press, or all the canning equipment necessary to make jam, so we will utilize Share to Build, Craigslist, and connections on the grape vine to coordinate fruit trees, supplies, and people to make it happen this season. There will also likely be a end-of-the-year harvest bartering festival early in October to celebrate and exchange the goods.

Please read my blog post, which may give you an idea of my inspiration and passion for starting this group.
https://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/harvest-a-creative-essay-by
I also ran across this blog, that I really resonated with. Enjoy!
http://www.livinginseason.com/food-drink/good-enough-to-wait/

Related Groups:

Earth Gardens: Edible-Medicinal-Wild Habitats:

https://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/group/organic

Center for Local Self Reliance
http://www.caretakershouse.org/

Small Scale Food & Gardening
https://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/group/subgroupfoodnotlawnsgroupsoontoberenamed

Discussion Forum

Tags: urban, gleaning, fruits, calendar, seasonal

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Comment by Christie Cassel on June 5, 2010 at 5:28pm: Any Western students have any printing quota leftover? They cut you off like Thursday of finals week. Use it up on color copies of the gleaning flier? The pdf file is in the Gleaning Flier Revised discussion. That would be super cool. Wednesday afternoon after the solar food dehydrating workshop might be a good day to get together for some mapping/fliering. Who's down?

Comment by Christie Cassel on June 4, 2010 at 1:01pm: There will be a solar food dehydrating workshop on Wednesday by Zach and Shawna. More details soon... Please check out and print the revised gleaning fliers and spread em around town, Thanx!

Comment by Christie Cassel on May 25, 2010 at 9:18pm: Made a facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=124410120921650&ref=ts
Check it out ; )

Comment by Christie Cassel on May 25, 2010 at 6:30pm: Heather, the SFS are really into it, of course, and had some really good ideas, like making a wiki site, which I did but am technologically chalenged with. Yes, I have talked to SPG in the very beginning, and the gleaning network is different in many ways. The late June meeting was going to be primarily about infrastructure, but a combined solar dehydrating workshop would be excellent. It's in the works. I'm a big fan of combined meetings too! I've been delivering Kangen water to a raw food workshop this week... lower temps for sure.

Tracy, wow! I can't believe the dandys are so far behind in season! There is infrastructure that needs to be addressed, but yes, we need to combine this meeting with solar food dehydtration workshop (w/ Shawna?) or gathering - strawberries, cherries, maple flowers, anything really. Keep in touch! PS: Is there still flowers and/or mustard and/or kale seeds at your place?

Comment by Tracy Grainger on May 25, 2010 at 2:01pm: Cool, I thought I would be missing out on gatherings since I am in Oregon until June 27th....The 29th is my birthday, so I would be in a better head space the day before or after! Are we gathering strawberries, or what??? Down here at Breitenbush, the dandelions are yet to come up, so I may just have to come home with some buckets of tea to try making wine all over again ;)

Comment by Heather K on May 25, 2010 at 10:23am: Christie, whats the update on your Meeting with the student group?

I heard recently from a Small Potato Gleaning volunteer, that they were going to be their urban neighborhood's lead organizing gleaner in the Fairhaven district, and they said they would be able to keep some of what they gleaned. (Let me know if you want her name).
How have you connected with the staff at the SPG organization to your share of your vision?

I'm not sure if I'll be able to attend the late June meeting at this point, and by then there may be some late strawberries or early plums to harvest. I'm a fan of combining meetings either with food, work-projects, or fire-circles.

I like the idea of attending a workshop to build a solar/electric food dryer. The one we have is just electric, but I've seen various dryers that use passsive solar...In our cool wet climate we may need the back up of either an electric fan or heater to keep the food drying in a passive solar unit. I'm also an advocate of low temp drying below 118 degrees to preserve the enzymes and create a raw-food dried product.

Comment by Christie Cassel on May 24, 2010 at 9:23pm: Was thinking about having a meeting Tuesday, June 29 at 6 or 7 p.m. That's almost a month in advance, but what do you think?

Comment by Christie Cassel on May 20, 2010 at 1:46pm: I'm attending the Students for Sustainable Food club meeting to pitch the gleaning network to the group. Anyone want to join me? It's Monday, May 24th at 5 p.m. at the activities center in the V.U. on campus. Lemme know! venus.uprising@gmail.com or bhamglean@gmail.com Thanx!

Comment by Christie Cassel on May 14, 2010 at 2:04pm: What a great meeting last night! We accomplished everything we needed to in order to never have formal meetings again! To find out about our ingenious plan, email bhamglean@gmail.com