Cooling Off is Hot

Lately, California has been urging residents to turn down AC's units and turn off computers to save energy.

Um, say WHAT?

Thankfully, GOOD Magazine comes to the rescue with a few realistic tips to get people to reduce energy use. Here's a simple list of fun ways to cool off that we wish local government and energy companies would promote instead of their boring, hermetic approach.

• Organize an office happy hour. The peak hours for air-conditioning use are four to six. Coincidentally, that overlaps with the peak hours that people around you want to drink. Maybe you can watch the Olympics while you're there. While there are probably rules that prohibit the government or power companies from encouraging people to go out drinking, that seems rather shortsighted. Maybe you don't drink, maybe you're tired: go to the coffee shop instead.
   
• If you feel like being at home, invite your friends over. Organize a "cool off party." You might as well all use one air conditioning unit as opposed to everyone using her own. With friends over, you won't need to use your computer since you'll have real life humans to talk with.
   
• Go to the movies. It's always freezing at the movies. Hate the movies? Run your errands instead. Other places where its typically cold include the grocery store, library, post office, hardware store, or pretty much anywhere else where things are sold.
   
• Go to the beach (or public pool). Again this is basic, but during the heat wave, it's about 10 to 20 degrees cooler on the coast than inland.

Government should think realistically about the way people live. Fighting the heatwave doesn't have to be prohibitionary, and it's silly to envision the default setting for people's afternoon locations as esconced in their sweaty living rooms.

Get out there and enjoy the weather, people!  Winter will be here soon!
*Katie.  Tell me what you think @KatieGMG

Urban Agriculture in LA Backyards

Do you live in an urban area but crave the freshness of homegrown?

Well now, if you're an LA resident, Farmscape is here to help.  This new urban agriculture company is proving that there's enough of an appetite for residential farming to turn the proposition into a high-growth business. 

Home Grown tastes better!  (Photo via GOOD)

According to GOOD, "Projects range from a rooftop garden on a downtown Los Angeles highrise to small plots for families. An exciting project in the works is a three-quarter acre-sized farm for a restaurant in the West San Fernando Valley. And the diversity of the projects is echoed by the diversity of their clients. "When we first started, we expected that our clients would be of a higher income level and would be two-parent working families," says Rachel Bailin, Farmscape's marketing manager. Instead, Farmscape has been delighted to build gardens for preschool teachers, single mothers, and institutions and businesses that want employee gardens as perks."

An Urban Garden (photo via Farmscape)

So far they've installed more than 300 urban farms throughout the L.A. area and maintain 150 of them weekly.

Bailin says the challenges of farming in Los Angeles are manifold. "You have to account for  spaces that haven't had life or biodiversity for decades and then you kind of have to bring it back." The company uses raised beds to avoid contaminated soil and drip irrigation systems to provide water.

Read more at Good Magazine or on Farmscape's website.   

-Katie @KatieGMG
Garden Media

A Food (pickup)Truck

Food trucks have hit mainstream, popping up in cities of all sizes across America.  

But this "food truck" is different.  Truck Farm Chicago is a nonprofit organization that uses a 1994 Ford F-250 named Petunia to chauffeur a miniature, educational farm around town.

Petunia is "geared" (get it?) to educate Chicago youth and families about healthy eating. Your education includes a short tour of the farm, plant identification, taste tests, and sensory exploration. 

"I was excited about this project as a fun, unique and creative way to bring gardening and nutrition education to children all over the city—especially those who may not otherwise get to see how food grows up close,” co-founder Shari Brown says. 

"Making healthy choices can be challenging, especially when good fresh food and education about why it's important and how to cook it is not always accessible. Truck Farm is trying to do our part by using our exhibit to spark these discussions, give youth the tools to make healthy choices, and inspire them to use their own creativity to encourage healthy changes in their communities."

Read more about the project at GOOD or on the Truck Farm's website.  What a cool spin on an already cool idea.

Creating a Lifetime of ‘Black Magic’ for your Soil

Biochar has been improving soil for thousands of years. 

In 1541, Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana, led a famous expedition down the Amazon river.  He returned boasting tales of a massive golden empire and areas of rich, black earth.  

Check out those lush banks!

Expedition after expedition hunted for evidence of these Mayan civilizations, but each came up empty handed.  This ‘Legend of El Dorado'  was thought to be a myth, until recently.

Soil science has proven that de Orellana was not hallucinating. By burning woody biomass, creating a char-like substance, and burying it in the soil, these Indian farmers created extremely fertile soil.  Today, this char-like substance is called biochar.

In a recent article in GOOD, Sarah Laskow writes that "biochar can capture carbon and improve soil."

She goes on to explain, "Biochar doesn’t feed plants directly, but it makes soil a friendly environment for biological life. It helps soil retain water and communities of microbes that benefit plants. It keeps nitrogen—necessary for plant growth—from leaching into ground water. Overall, it’s been shown to raise crop yields. This isn’t a secret: Amazonian farmers used this techniques thousands of years ago to prepare thin soils for planting."

Leading the US industry in producing biochar for consumer use, Soil Reef™ is using proprietary technology to create a superior product for the garden. 

Soil Reef™ creates biochar with an age-old process called pyrolysis that bakes uncontaminated wood by cooking it at high temperatures with no oxygen in a controlled container. This process sequesters about half the carbon in the biomass and reduces it to pure biochar, one of the key ingredients in rich soil.

According to biochar pioneer Lopa Brunjes, Director for The Biochar Company, LLC and TEDx speaker, “Soil Reef ultimately increases crop yields, grows healthier plants that are more resistant to disease, and reduces annual dependency on fertilizers.

Soil Reef™ is now available at www.soilreef.com.

AND- if you're in Seattle and want to meet other biochar aficionados, make sure you check out this upcoming biochar stove workshop on March 31. 

-Katie
Garden Media Group

Urban farming meets Cyber-Gardening

Image via EcoLogicStudio

A decaying fishing industry in the Baltic sea and two digitally obsessed architects from EcoLogicStudio have created an interactive exhibit, "The Hanging Algae Garden," aimed at educating people about the benefits of algae.

GOOD describes how this interactive exhibit works: 

Image via EcoLogicStudio

"Each bag connects to a blow-tube, where visitors can exhale to feed the system carbon dioxide and help the plants grow. Using smartphones, participants in this strange experiment scan QR codes on each bag to discover information about the nine different types of algae, and can tweet about their actions. The digital engagement is mapped out on a nearby screen in real-time, a 3D visualization referred to by the project's creators as a "cyber-garden" that demonstrates the evolution of the ecosystem and the relationship between plants and humans." 

Claudia Pasquero, who helped create the exhibit says "the project makes you think about farming and gardening, but there is another level where knowledge can be disseminated and exchanged, and it's a virtual cultivation of knowledge."  

Read more about how the physical and virtual worlds collide here. And let's discuss, do you think this is a good teaching tool for how we can help effect the growth of plants?
@KatieGMG Garden Media Group

There is still time to give back

Have you seen the powerful Subaru 'Share the Love' commercials?

Subaru will donate $250 to the customer's choice of one of the 5 participating charities for every new Subaru vehicle purchased or leased during the “Share the Love” event- but it ends January 3rd! 

But, I'm already a Subaru owner, you say?  Me too!  Now you can vote for your favorite participating charity on Facebook and Subaru will donate $1 on your behalf.  This special $1 to Charity program will run until January 3, 2012 or until the $250,000 donation amount has been achieved, so cast your vote for either American Forests, Make-A-Wish-Foundation, ASPCA, Meals On Wheels, or Special Olympics now.

During the last three years, Subaru has donated nearly $15 million. With your help, they hope to donate another $5 million this year.  So, go vote!

Via GOOD