Monday, February 28, 2011

A Little Patch of One's Own

Green screens full of snow and snowpocalypses aside, it's almost March and time to start planning for planting!

Whether you are a novice gardener in a small urban space, or you have plenty of acreage to work with, now is the time to start mapping out your seasonal plots of plenty.

Since I belong to the first group, I've been reading the book Fresh Food from Small Spaces by R.J. Ruppenthal and also looking longingly through my other fave in the genre, Four-Season Harvest by Eliot Coleman. I've also signed up to get my little tiny plot of P-Patch land. However, in Seattle, like in many urban areas, there is a long wait for a plot.

While I'm waiting, there are several other organizations that will give me a chance to get my hands dirty. The Seattle Department of Neighborhoods recently sent out a flyer that included a list of these gardening resources and organizations I wanted to share with local Weekly Way readers: 

Urban Garden Share (various cities) & Urban Land Army (Seattle only): These organizations match those with spare land with those who want to garden.

Seattle Tilth: (not on the list but a great gardening resource) Nonprofit organization with tons of events and classes on everything from beekeeping to master composting! Seattle Tilth also put on two plant sales in the spring that are a great place to get all of your starts.

Alleycat Acres: "Alleycat Acres is an urban farming collective that aims to reconnect people with food. To achieve this, we create community-run farms on under utilized urban spaces." You can visit their website for volunteer opportunities and more ways to get involved. 

City Fruit: "City Fruit works neighborhood by neighborhood to help residential tree owners grow healthy fruit, to harvest and use what they can, and to share what they don’t need. City Fruit collaborates with others involved in local food production, climate protection, horticulture, food security and community-building to protect and optimize urban fruit trees."









Friday, February 18, 2011

Lower Impact (Wo)man?

Although I had known about the book for a while, I just watched No Impact Man for the first time. Like me, Colin Beavan is a bit/a lot of an idealist. He's also a self-proclaimed liberal, who decided to see if he and his family could spend a year creating no environmental impact. This experiment meant giving up everything, including toilet paper, refrigeration, electricity, and air and car travel.

When asked about why he decided to embark on this experiment, he said, "It's not about deprivation, and it's not about not taking care of yourself. It's about seeing if you can have a good life without wasting so much." He meets people along the way who have been living a low-impact lifestyle for years and are a bit cynical about his quest. Not surprisingly, he also meets those who would never be willing to give up the "necessities" he and his family do without for a year. No washing machine and laundry detergent? No, thank you!

No matter where you fall in assessing his motives (he did sell a lot of books, and the movie was screened at Sundance), the idea of finding ways to have a significantly lower impact on the environment is one worth exploring. It's something I think about every day, and it's one of the main reasons I moved to Seattle. I wanted to live somewhere with a year-round growing season, reliable public transportation, and easy accessibility to the oceans and the mountains. Granted, I live a very low impact lifestyle because I have chosen to do so, and doing without the fancy paper coffee cups, wardrobe for every season, and excess packaging doesn't really feel like a hardship because it isn't.

From purchases to electricity use to travel, try making a list of everything you can easily do without. I bet it will be longer than you think.


Monday, February 14, 2011

Virtual Love and Hugs on VDay

Vday is an international organization dedicated to ending violence against women and girls. The organization, which was founded by author and activist, Eve Ensler, just announced the opening of The City of Joy in the Congo, a much-needed community of hope for female Congolese survivors of gender violence. On this day of love, visit Vday's website and join the nonviolent movement that matters to us all.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Get a Deal and Do Something Good

Many of you might already be familiar with websites like Groupon and Living Social that send out a daily deal for everything from discounted bar grub to two-for-one music lessons in your city or town. But what if you could get a deal and contribute to a worthy, local cause at the same time? 

Thanks to the Ideal Network, you can. It works the same way as Groupon or Living Social (you spend $15 or $20 bucks and get a voucher worth twice as much on the daily deal) with one notable exception; 20-25% of the money you spend goes toward a worthy cause in your area. So check it out, nab a deal, and do some good.