Transition Whatcom

Bellingham Gleaning Network

Information

Bellingham Gleaning Network

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

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

Gleaning Season 2011

Started by Christie Cassel. Last reply by Kate Clark Mar 30, 2011. 2 Replies

The fist signs of Spring our showing up in our area.  Exciting!It's a good time to re-group and sets goals and intensions for this up-coming gleaning season. So, I'd like to hear from all of you -…Continue

Gleaning Flier Revised

Started by Christie Cassel Jun 4, 2010. 0 Replies

I attached a pdf file of the revised formatted version for you to print and spread around, here's the text:You take the best, and we’ll take the rest!The Bellingham Gleaning Network is a project…Continue

The First Steps

Started by Christie Cassel Apr 28, 2010. 0 Replies

The first step to focus on currently, is to compile a calendar of what plants are in season when, so we can plan our gleaning one fruit at a time.  This is what I have so far, but my memory of last…Continue

Tags: urban, gleaning, fruits, calendar, seasonal

Comment Wall

Comment

You need to be a member of Bellingham Gleaning Network to add comments!

Comment by T. Abe Lloyd on August 6, 2012 at 10:13am

Hi Gleaners!

This Thursday (August 9th) at 6:00 pm I am leading a wild berry harvesting hike on Stewart Mountain. We will meet at the North Lake Whatcom parking lot (at the end of North Shore Drive, next to Lake Whatcom) at 6:00 pm and venture into the hills to pick several species of wild berries including: red huckleberry, thimbleberry, blackcap raspberry, salal, and trailing blackberry. Plan on about 90 minutes of picking and hiking on a steep gravel road. Bring bags or containers for your berries. I will be sharing ethnobotanical tidbits about other plants as well.

Swimming to follow for the amphibious among us. I know Katrina and I will be... that is all she wanted for her birthday!

Comment by T. Abe Lloyd on May 8, 2012 at 12:25pm

We were still able to find lots of nettles that hadn't started flowering and made our pesto with nettles, garlic, olive oil, parmesan, and Katrina's home-made sea salt.

Your vegan recipe sounds great Christie!

Comment by Christie Cassel on May 8, 2012 at 10:33am

Hey everyone! So glad this is an active group without me! I'm sorry I wasn't able to participate last year because I was busy with school . . . and life! But Now I've graduated and think this year will be more of a gleaning and preserving year than a gardening one, so I'm excited to get back into the flow! Glad everyone got into nettles. They're going to seed now, so it's kind of like the last chance for some last-minute pesto and such.

My raw vegan pesto recipe:

nettles (just the leaves)

garlic

walnuts, soaked

olive oil

lemon juice

salt

Cheers to a new season of gleaning!

l

Comment by Megan A. Barnes on May 7, 2012 at 2:56pm
Im not able to make it:( I have to work late. Have fun!
Comment by T. Abe Lloyd on May 7, 2012 at 2:16pm

2539 James street.

Comment by Jean Kroll on May 7, 2012 at 6:41am

Ah heck, tonight is my book club night!  Have fun picking nettles and making pesto  Let me know how it goes!  I love the idea of wild harvesting/gleaning/ processing foods as a community!

Comment by T. Abe Lloyd on May 6, 2012 at 9:46pm

Let's go for it then.  We'll make pesto right after we collect the nettles.  I have a blender.  Bring your favorite pesto ingredients (olive oil, pine nuts, parmesan cheese, garlic...).  I don't have a pressure caner, but I will probably freeze mine.

Comment by Jamie Jedinak on May 6, 2012 at 10:48am

I'm sorry, I guess I misunderstood from your note below inviting us all that we would all be processing the stuff together.  did you change your mind and just want to harvest together?  jamie

Comment by T. Abe Lloyd on May 6, 2012 at 9:33am

I live in a community style house with a big kitchen.  If people want to process the nettles right away (which might take a while), we can do that in my kitchen.

My sense is that people will want to go home for dinner and maybe process the nettles later.

Comment by Jamie Jedinak on May 5, 2012 at 11:35pm

Thats sounds Good!  The only thing that might be helpful is to have a better sense of what we will do afterwards so we can gather supplies and any types of equipment we may want to have. 

I'm an advocate of setting it up well ahead of time to have an easy time rather than ooops this and ooops that b/c we chose to leave it to last.  Your call.....

I am at 756-9919 ~  Jamie

 

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