A Glimpse of the Year Ahead

After a flurry of outreach, meetings and events in 2019, Cultivate Cochrane is poised for our next stage of progress in 2020. With some new members on our board of directors, we’ve laid out a path for the months ahead that will bring us ever closer to the passive solar community greenhouse hub we’ve all been dreaming of. Though strategic plans aren’t always the most inspired reading material, we think ours is actually pretty exciting! Here are the four main objectives we’ve set out to accomplish this year:

1. CUSTOMERS: Conduct community engagement to determine the top needs of potential greenhouse customers and develop a program and education plan to meet these needs.

2. FINANCIALS: Develop capital and operations budgets along with fundraising strategies for both.

3. BUILDING: Secure a site for the greenhouse and customize a design for the building based on site partnerships and identified community needs.

4.  MEMBERSHIP: Grow and retain society membership and develop a mature board of directors.

So we have our work cut out for us! We’ve also had some really promising discussions with leaders in our community about mutually beneficial siting of the greenhouse. It seems the concept of an innovative sunny gathering space where sharing and learning can happen around feeding ourselves is something that resonates with a wide range of community members.

The cost of produce is expected to continue to rise this year, the climate continues to shift, and we continue to have a very short growing season. Plus, the loneliness and disconnect people feel in these modern times seems to persist. So a sustainably-designed community hub where we can increase our ability to grow food locally is an idea whose time has come.

There is much to be done and we invite you to join us. It takes a village to raise a community greenhouse hub!

Well Done!

Sometimes you just have to give yourself a pat on the back — toot your own horn, right? At Cultivate Cochrane’s recent AGM we took a look at all of our efforts and accomplishments over the past year and we have to say that we even impressed ourselves with the list. We’ve been busy! And we’ve laid the foundation (metaphorically speaking) for our passive solar community greenhouse hub to come to fruition.

Some of the highlights of our last 12 months:

• Incorporated as a non-profit and developed policies, strategic plan and financial plan

• Held a seat on Tri Site Advisory Group and presented to the group in a bid for inclusion in Tri Site plans

• Met with numerous community groups, Mayor, councillors, Town administration, local developers, and businesses to explore support and synergies

• Hosted "coffee chats" to connect with interested community members 

• Offered Skill Build workshops ranging from tool sharpening to fermenting

• Launched officially with a very well-attended passive solar greenhouse talk and tour 

• Hosted a table at several farmers' markets

• Took part in the Labour Day Parade with a wheelbarrow full of produce, handing out postcards along the way

• Visited three local greenhouses gleaning pros and cons of each design

• And much more!

Rob Avis explains features of his front yard on the greenhouse talk & tour

With connections forged and groundwork laid, Cultivate Cochrane has some exciting possibilities to pursue in the year ahead. We’re ready to get busy and propel our plans to the next stage!

Skill build workshops

Board members took turns organizing and running several hands-on workshops for community members to learn new skills related to sustainable lifestyle. Topics included tool sharpening, fermenting, teacup bird feeders, and preserving with pesto.

Warmth and Shelter

Late frost, early frost, snow in May and June, hail, wild winds, and opportunistic squirrels, rabbits, and deer. Just some of the reasons a greenhouse can make a whole lot of sense for growing food in Cochrane!

While I’ll always be happy to have a garden out of doors, some of those crops are routinely challenged and stunted by weather and animals beyond our control. By contrast, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and basil happily thrive in the warmth and shelter of my greenhouse. And there’s nothing more pleasant than doing a bit of pruning, weeding, and watering in this sunny little structure on a cooler day or first thing in the morning when the air outside is still chilled.

A fledgling tomato in my greenhouse early June

Many people find themselves frustrated by Cochrane’s challenging food-growing climate and figure they’ll leave it up to BC, California, Mexico, or even South Africa to deliver our produce. But we can grow more than we think here if we choose the right plants and innovate ways to extend the season. Anything from a cold frame to my somewhat ramshackle greenhouse will add to how well we can begin to feed ourselves from our own backyard with the healthiest and most sustainable produce possible. The ultimate system for season extension in these parts is, of course, the passive solar greenhouse. 

Once our community greenhouse hub becomes a reality, we can add another layer to those greenhouse benefits - community connection and gathering! Until then, I’ll tend my tomatoes for another season and keep my fingers crossed for a frost-free September for the rest of the garden!

My attempt to shelter an outdoor tomato plant last September

Cultivate Cochrane at the Cochrane Farmers' Market this Summer!

We are thrilled to be part of the Cochrane Farmers’ Market and the Cochrane Street Market this summer. Come and talk with us, fill out our community engagement questions and pick up some free goodies for your garden, window box or planter box or learn about our skill build workshops for the fall.

We are at the Farmers’ Market from 9:30 am to 1:30 pm on June 15, July 6 and 27, August 17 and September 14.

We are at the Cochrane Street Market from 5-9 pm on June 20 and July 18.

We hope to see you there!

Coffee chats

Cultivate Cochrane held 7 coffee chats at various local coffee shops. These allowed us to introduce ourselves to the community, answer questions, and engage in conversation about what people wanted to see in a greenhouse hub.

Passive Solar Backyard Greenhouse Information

Rob Avis at the Cochrane Public Library on May 5, 2019

On May 5, Cultivate Cochrane Society hosted Rob Avis of Verge Permaculture at the Cochrane Public Library where he spent an hour talking on Backyard Passive Solar Greenhouses to an avid group of 50 people. Following Rob’s amazingly informative talk, 24 of us piled into two tour vans and visited three backyard passive solar greenhouses ranging in size from 100 to 500 sq. feet. Along the way we learned about green building, climate and financial resiliency, alternatives way of growing food and community and of more hopeful paths for the future. We want to thank Rob, our sponsors (see below) and all of our participants who came for a successful and inspiring launch event for Cultivate Cochrane Society.

Below are further readings, information and video links related to the greenhouse talk and tour for anyone interested in the possibility of building, or having built, a functioning backyard greenhouse.

Rob’s backyard greenhouse.

These are the three greenhouses we visited on the tour:

500 sq foot Passive Solar Greenhouse on School grounds.

Rob Avis’ Green House and the Three Mistakes he made on his passive solar greenhouse design.

Jeremy Zoller’s Micro Backyard Greenhouse.

For fun, Rob also has a video on a low cost (less than $1000 Geodesic Dome style greenhouse) that is worth checking for the DYI types out there.

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Designing Your Own Backyard Greenhouse

If you’re really keen on learning as much as you can about greenhouses and want to avoid costly design mistakes, then we highly recommend three resources from Rob Avis below:

Verge’s FREE Design Your Own Passive Solar Greenhouse Like a Professional video course.

Verge’s Passive Solar Greenhouse Case Studies package for $97 USD

Verge’s Passive Solar Greenhouse Design DIY package for $247 USD

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Partners to Design and Build Your Passive Solar Backyard Greenhouse

The following companies can help you design and build a high functioning greenhouse for your yard.

• Jeremy Zoller and Sunshine Earthworks for micro passive greenhouses.

• Bruce Kay and the team at Ongrowing Works in Cochrane for custom designed greenhouses.

• Rob Avis provides greenhouse design consulting services through Adaptive Habitat.

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For anyone who wants a life transforming adventure, we highly recommend taking a two-week Permaculture Design Course (PDC) from Verge Permaculture. Three of the board members of Cultivate Cochrane Society all have PDC’s from Verge and the life knowledge we gained is the inspiration for us to establish a passive solar community greenhouse hub in Cochrane. Highly recommended!

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Thanks again to our wonderful sponsors for making our launch event a resounding success!

Verge Permaculture, OnGrowing Works, Cochrane Environmental Action Committee (CEAC), and The Noble Fox Coffee.

Passive solar greenhouse talk & tour

Local permaculture designer and passive solar greenhouse expert, Rob Avis, presented to 50 attendees at the Cochrane Public Library. He then led 22 participants on a bus tour of three passive solar greenhouses of varying sizes in Calgary. All participants received an heirloom tomato seedling and organic cotton Cochrane Farmers Market bag.

Cultivating Connections with CEAC

“To make Cochrane and area a more environmentally aware and active community”. That’s the mission of the Cochrane Environmental Action Committee (CEAC), a longstanding group of dedicated individuals that has been quietly improving the wellbeing of our community and the natural world that supports us for years. Maybe you’re familiar with CEAC, maybe you’re not, but almost certainly you’ve benefitted from one or more of their many initiatives.

Among their achievements is the establishment of Cochrane’s first recycling facility, hosting numerous talks, conferences, and screenings, and the funding of schoolyard naturalization projects. CEAC was instrumental in the brownfield committee that achieved remediation of contaminated lands in the centre of town, and provided critical funding to the Cochrane High Sustainable Energy Project. They continue to organize weed pulls of invasive species and have overseen 23 years of the Branches & Banks event that sees hundreds of native trees and shrubs planted and the Big Hill creek cleaned up. 

Oh, and the Cochrane Farmers’ Market? CEAC runs that, too. Not only is the market a huge draw to visitors and a social hub for locals, it’s a crucial platform that brings growers and other makers of food together with eaters to build a viable local food system. That’s something Cultivate Cochrane can really get behind! We are thrilled to have them as partners who share our vision of building a resilient and connected community and who have thrown their support behind our planned greenhouse hub. CEAC is a key sponsor of our upcoming Cold Climate Backyard Greenhouses Talk & Tour.

2019 marks CEAC’s 30th anniversary of working behind the scenes towards an environmentally sustainable future for Cochrane and beyond. Let’s raise a glass to all they have done and continue to do for our community!

Partnering with the The Noble Fox Coffee Shop

We are thrilled to announce that The Noble Fox Coffee Shop is one of Cultivate Cochrane’s latest business supporters. As soon as Carlos and Carolyn found our initiative to build a community greenhouse hub they joined as active members in the society. They were quick to offer their coffee shop as a meeting place for our Coffee Chats and our member meetings, as a venue for our Skill Build Workshops (like the Tea Cup Bird Feeder Workshop happening on May 8) and finally as a sponsor of our Greenhouse talk and tour on May 5 by supplying snacks and drinks for our bus tour participants. Thanks to The Noble Fox for all their community initiatives within Cultivate Cochrane and beyond. We love to partner with business that builds community!

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The Noble Fox owners, Carlos and Carolyn.