We had the pleasure of enjoying both the sunny weather and socially responsible planning of the Just Food Seedling Saturday on May 23, 2020. Thanks to the members of the Facebook group called the Ottawa Food Forest Exchange who brought items to exchange and donate to the exchange table. We want to extend a special thanks to Sundaura for her Roselle seedlings and Sarah for her gorgeous gooseberry, many perennial leeks, patience dock and of course her time and knowledge sharing at the exchange table. Also a big, big thanks to all the folks at Just Food, and Moe for making the day possible, and providing us the space to build the community and share items to help build more resilient home yards and food forests across Ottawa.
Attendees that did not have items to swap could donate… “put the $$ in the boot”, where those donations will now be put towards buying some more trees for the Just Food Community Food Forest (affectionately known as the redbarn food forest).
After the exchange was over, we spent some time more closely inspecting the redbarn food forest, which has woken up and is looking spectacular. There are a small number of items that suffered from rodent damage over the winter (counted 4 trees in Field 2 with damage). We hope to get signage up this year as an aid to the self-guided walking tours through the site, as has been the plan long before these strange Covid-19 times.
Here are a few photos of the redbarn site, in all its unkempt spring time glory…
Young Burr Oak unfurling its Leaves 
Taylor Apple-Pear at Redbarn 
Romance cherries in bloom 
Glowing Heart Apple (a.k.a. Nadia’s tree) in full bloom
Ottawa Food Forests 