Marketeer

Backyard Bounty has created this new position for the 2012 growing season.

The role of the marketeer will involve being at each market we attend as the sales person for the vegetables. This can be a demanding job as the Guelph Farmers’ Market is quite early and there are lots of crates of veggies to lug around.  In addition, we will likely be at 3 markets in addition to the Farmers’ Market. You will need to work with the two Senior Farmers and the Manager to be knowledgeable about the vegetables and report what you have sold.  You may be asked to help in the gardens on occasion.

Qualifications and Skills

-Enthusiastic

-Physically fit

-Good skills in math

-Trust worthy

-Organized

-Good eye for aesthetics, creative

-Passionate about urban/ecological agriculture

-Strong work ethic

-Strong team player

-Good communication skills

-Can follow instructions well

-Able to work independently

-Willing to work in difficult weather

-Experience working with volunteers and other staff

-Class ‘G’ drivers licence, able to drive a pick-up truck.

-Basic computer skills (excel, word processing, internet communication)

Preference will be given to persons with some experience with urban or organic farming and who has a love for cooking!

Work schedule and compensation

This is a seasonal position beginning in May and continuing until November of 2012. This is a paid, part time position, with a pay of $10.75 per hour. Work is during weekdays, going into some evenings, and on each Saturday morning. Contact for more details.

Contact

Send a resumé and cover letter to the current Senior Farmer, Tom Armitage at tom@backyardbounty.ca.  Check out www.backyardbounty.ca for more information about the social enterprise.  Applications due December 31^st, 2011.

By KEVIN ROOSE
The New York Times

IN this verdant lawn-filled college town, most people keep their lawn mowers tuned up by oiling the motor and sharpening the blades. Eddie Miller keeps his in shape with salt licks and shearing scissors.

Mr. Miller, 23, is the founder of Heritage Lawn Mowing, a company that rents out sheep — yes, sheep — as a landscaping aid. For a small fee, Mr. Miller, whose official job title is “shepherd,” brings his ovine squad to the yards of area homeowners, where the sheep spend anywhere from three hours to several days grazing on grass, weeds and dandelions.

The results, he said, are a win-win: the sheep eat free, saving him hundreds of dollars a month in food costs, and his clients get a freshly cut lawn, with none of the carbon emissions of a conventional gas-powered mower. (There are, of course, other emissions, which Mr. Miller said make for “all-natural fertilizer.”)

“They countrify a city,” Mr. Miller said of his four-legged staff. “And they lend a lot of awareness about how people lived in the past.”

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NOTE: There is a farm that will be offering this service in Guelph, Ontario next year. All Sorts Acre will be offering homeowners the natural lawn mowing.

The Ontario agriculture ministry web page offers links to tips and insights for city growers

by SUSAN MANN

People are flocking to the Ontario agriculture ministry’s web-based resource information page on urban agriculture.

Since being launched on April 27, there have been more than 4,000 visits to the Urban Agriculture Business Information Bundle.

Joanne Handley, Ontario agriculture ministry manager of sustainable production for dairy swine and poultry, says the site is a one-stop resource for city dwellers or municipal policy makers looking for information on urban agriculture.

Urban agriculture refers to food production in urban areas, whether it’s for personal consumption, commercial sale, education or therapy, it says on the website. Currently about 15 per cent of the world’s food is grown in urban areas.

The site was established because the ministry was getting lots of questions about urban agriculture and raising poultry within city limits. “We thought it would be easier to direct them to one location to be able to access all the information that was available on this topic,” she says.

Topics covered include: growing fruits, vegetables and herbs, organic production, sales, raising livestock, finding space, composting, soil quality, dealing with wildlife, plus relevant legislation and regulations. BF

The Chicago City Council approved a zoning code amendment allowing for more widespread urban agriculture Thursday.

As WBEZ reports, the zoning code has expanded the size of community gardens to 25,000 feet, thus accommodating commercial farms within city limits. The ordinance also trims some of the red tape both farms and gardens face.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel lauded the amendment as a “job creator” that will also capitalize on otherwise vacant land.

“This policy is about taking land that we have here in the city of Chicago that is literally sitting fallow both as land as well as a revenue base or tax base and turning it into a job creator and a revenue creator. And there’s great parts of the city where that exists,” Emanuel said, as reported by WBEZ.

“The City worked with its sister agencies, urban agriculture experts and community members in an effort to help strengthen community ties and turn available empty lots into viable, productive urban green spaces,” the mayor continued in a statement commending City Council for approving the ordinance.

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by may jeong

From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail

Published Tuesday, Sep. 13, 2011

Clarine Lee-Macaraig looks out the window of her Toronto home with pride at her heirloom tomatoes, millionaire eggplants and cheddar cauliflower. There’s chocolate mint that “smells exactly like chocolate,” and lemon balm that is “good with some vodka.” A sea of Provence lavender is in full bloom. There’s parsley, garlic and green onions, too.

“In the summer, my garden gives me 80 per cent of my produce. Whatever I have as leftovers, I am able to freeze.”

The yield is impressive. Ms. Lee-Macaraig counts two pints of cherry tomatoes, at least three cucumbers, an eggplant, some cabbage, blueberries, a zucchini and an endless array of herbs. And that’s just one recent week’s harvest.

An exact dollar value is difficult to pin down, but she estimates her household saves “somewhere around $300” a season. If she were to sell her harvest in the market, she figures she would be “making a killing.” The only time she visits a grocery store is to buy more exotic, tropical fruit, and her summer harvest keeps her stocked well into the winter months.

A rough back of the envelope calculation says she’s only spent about $30 this season.

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