Little Forests Kingston

Saturday 12 March Agenda

10:00 am Saturday March 12

Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81195507009?pwd=cHdyaVpFUVNrRmVBYmdnR1lWcVZrQT09

Topics:

1. So far we’ve had 37 people fill in the Little Forests survey. Let’s talk about best ways to involve people in our growing community (Joyce)

2. Workshop series (Maureen)

3. Budget activity (Sandra)

4. Propagation (Marinus)

Thanks for helping spread the word about our gofundme! We’ve already raised $4180 of our $15000 goal. Keep sharing the gofundme gf.me/u/zkgt9v!

Updates

• Fill in the Little Forests Survey: I created a survey for people interested in being involved with Little Forests. Fill out the survey yourself. Email it to anyone who might be interested. Share it on social media. Here’s the link: https://bit.ly/3qoZ3Se

• Sourcing: We’re almost ready to submit our order (Monday). Waiting to hear back from Wolfe Island based on City Council vote for funding. Verbinnen’s new quote includes the species they can’t supply in plugs, total is $4548.67 (with HST). Species we still need to source (or propagate) include

  • Carya lacinosa

  • Catalpa speciosa

  • Crataegus

  • Diospyros virginiana

  • Fraxinus

  • Malus (infrequently)

  • Morus

  • Pinus resinosa (infrequently)

  • Ribes aureum

  • Ribes cynobasti

  • Ribes hirtellum

  • Shepherdia canadensis

• wild apples & propagation: Is anyone keen on wild apples (Malus)? Marinus is sprouting seeds of two wild apples that he recommends: Prairie Crab (Malus ioiensis) & Malus coronaria. He has the book Heritage Apples Across Ontario by Sher Leetooze & he is keen to map the remaining old local orchards with their wealth of old apple cultivars that have proven their hardiness & disease resistance. If you’re interested, let Marinus know (he’ll be at tomorrow’s meeting). He’s also sourced a ton of other seeds if anyone is keen on trying their hands at propagating!

• banking: Bob said that with persistence 350.org was able to open a community account at the credit union. I talked with Jude from 350.org to see how she managed it. 350 had to create bylaws. Since we’re not ready to draft bylaws, we finalized the BMO account. We can switch to the credit union if we formalize in the future.

• Maureen at Gather panel: If you didn’t get a chance to watch Gather, you can watch it until the end of March. Also watch the panel recording where Maureen talks about Little Forests.

• Nature Canada: Maureen, Joanne and I were on the networking call Nature Canada organized with people interested in planting in Little Forests (or supporting efforts to plant) and monitor Little Forests (Toronto District School Board, CanPlant, Lower Trent Conservation Authority and Nature Alberta). We’ll be meeting four times over four months to work together on shared topics. April meeting will focus on data gathering.

• Soil Ritual: Joanne’s students shared their ideas for a beautiful soil ritual that will acknowledge the land in an important, embodied way. We’ll be conducting the ritual during the Lakeside and KSS soil testing.

Resources

• Species spreadsheet

Action items

• Signup Form: Done, see agenda. https://bit.ly/3qoZ3Se

• MG Sponsor: Joyce follow up with Master Gardeners re Little Forest as a 'sponsored' project of 1000 Master Gardener. (hopefully on agenda for April 22 meeting)

• Budget TBD: Sandra facilitating budget activity during meeting.

• Ordering TBD: Teresa waiting on final order list.

Inspiration