Echo Bay woman caught harvesting bacteria at gardening event (12 photos)

“Yeah, it is kind of weird,” said Taya Mara, one of the organizers of Echo Bay’s bacteria harvesting food group, Culture Club.

Mara, along with 15 other vendors and organizations, attended the New North Greenhouses “celebration of the local gardening community” Hello Spring! event on Saturday.​

Culture Club like to 'ferment', that is, they enjoy preserving food by encouraging the growth of micro-organisms.

A typical fermenting recipe, said Mara, is chopping a vegetable like cabbage, adding salt, and then pounding the cabbage into a jar until the vegetable sits in a natural brine.

The jars are left to ferment for anywhere from a few days to perhaps a year or more.

Fermented food has a recommended shelf life of around 9 months or possibly longer.

Some of her fermented recipes, like Kombucha tea, use a “weird” (her words) sponge-like SCOBY– a “symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast.”

Mara said that, above all else, jars of fermented food create environments for gut-friendly probiotic bacteria to thrive; bacteria that’s lacking in our modern diets.

‘Fermentation is not new; its how you preserved food from the beginning of human history. We still ferment the exact the same as we did hundreds of years ago except now we have laboratory made culture that you can add in to boost the probiotics. The initial idea of pounding a cabbage, mixing in salt, and putting it in a jar to ferment is the same,” said Mara.

Different types of fermentation can be used to make sourdough bread, cakes, muffins, tea, probiotic detox drinks that taste like pop, various side dishes like jalapeno cauli-kraut, and a lot more.

“It covers just about every aspect of nutrition,” she said.

For about the last year and a half the Culture Club has been meeting about every six weeks in the basement of the Echo Bay United Church and each time they make a different fermenting recipe.

“I just wanted to give people the knowledge to make these foods at home. It's cost-effective and it gives you the opportunity to make extremely healthy food in your own kitchen.,” she said.

Mara, along with her partner-in-ferment Kit Purnis, do workshops in other locations upon request.

There were several other interesting tables at the Hello Spring! event.

The event featured a ‘Sensory Garden’ put on by Katie Babcock, an employee at New North Greenhouses working towards getting her certification in horticultural therapy through Algoma University.

Kids were putting their noses into mint-chocolate smelling plants, looking through a magnifying glass at stones and flowers, and listening to wind chimes amongst other simple activities designed to stimulate a child’s senses in a fun way that also promotes learning and growth.

Babcock said the “taste” part of her garden was the most popular - she gave out suckers.  

Also at the event, from St. Joseph Island, Maria Smith and Sheila Campbell of the Master Gardener’s of Ontario (MGO) Algoma chapter set up a table to give free gardening advice.

The MGO is run by volunteers who have taken courses through the University of Guelph and who dedicate their time to running clinics, information tables, and sometimes even house calls for those who want professional-grade gardening advice.

The Hello Spring! event was put on as a joint venture between New North Greenhouses and Sault Ste. Marie Horticultural Society.

Besides celebrating spring, the event also raised money for local community gardens.

New North Greenhouses also donated $1 from every bag of compost and fertilizer they sold on Saturday.