I've been in Nanaimo about a year and am borrowing the back yard of a non-gardening friend to do some truly local food production. My last organic garden was in a very different biome and climate, so I'd like to get in touch with Nanaimo-area gardeners for advice on: best times to start seedlings and get them in the ground best local cultivars (climate-adapted) local suppliers for organic horse (or other) manure, compost, topsoil, seaweed, sawdust, straw in bales local seed swaps, island heirlooms local suppliers of OP bare root fruit/nut trees I have obtained the Saltspring Seeds catalogue which looks like a good start, but would really like to confer with gardeners who have done successful backyard organic veggies in the central Nanaimo climate (near sea level). I would like to start keeping bees again also (TBH not Langstroth) and would appreciate contact info for local beeks from whom I might get a locally-adapted swarm or nuc, also would love to talk to anyone who is already doing TBH beekeeping here. I'm a moderately experienced organic veggie gardener but quite unfamiliar with local conditions so I feel like a complete newbie. Can anyone spare me the "learning the hard way" experience so I waste as little as possible of our shortish growing season?
Hi, after bouncing around on Google, I found these. Hope they help. http://www.nanaimocommunitygardens.ca/ composting web sites http://www.compost.org/ http://www.mastercomposter.com/ http://www.wormdigest.org/ http://www.oldgrowth.org/compost/ http://www.library.envirolink.org/
