CT Green Scene

Aruba: The Next Urban Farm?

by Eileen Weber

Last week, I vacationed in a place I have never been: Aruba. Why a tiny Caribbean island only 20 miles long and six miles wide? Because every time I’ve had it up to here, it’s the furthest place I can think of when I get cranky. Naturally, I felt the need to spend a week there.

Touring the island, it quickly becomes clear that it’s a cliché: Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Thanks to a desalination plant on the east side of the island only a few minutes drive from Oranjestad, the island’s capital, there is drinking water from the tap. But that doesn’t seem to affect their agriculture.

Organic Farm Gives Food to Cancer Victims, Needs Volunteers

Feeney Farm will be hosting its first in a series of three “Volunteer Days” at the Fairfield Community Garden (FCG) on Saturday, July 31st from 8 – 11 am. Volunteers will be weeding, digging and preparing the soil for swiss chard, kale, carrots and brussell sprouts. All produce will be harvested in the fall and donated to Fairfield cancer patients and survivors.
 
Feeney Farm, a start-up farm in Fairfield whose aim is to grow and donate vegetables to those in the community suffering from cancer, plans to provide  50-100 Fairfield cancer patients and survivors 50% of their recommended daily vegetables intake during the months of June through October. Feeney Farm officially starts in 2011, but will be growing produce in a plot at the FCG located in Drew Park in Fairfield.

If you’re interested in volunteering this Saturday, fundraising or getting involved, contact Margaret Feeney at  margaretmaryfeeney@gmail.com or visit www.feeneyfarm.org.

Image courtesy of Feeney Farm.

Potato and Corn Festival Highlights Local Farms

by Abbie Walston

Searching for some entertainment and family fun with plenty of food? Look no further than the North Branford Potato and Corn Festival on August 6th through 8th at Augur Farm on Route 22. For the last ten years, it has been a community tradition. The town’s agrarian character will be on display alongside the midway, allowing visitors to learn more about local farms. Local restaurants, farms, and businesses will offer a wide variety of food, including baked potatoes with toppings and fresh, locally grown sweet corn.

A Farmer’s Market will be held on Saturday and Sunday, hosted by the North Branford Agriculture Commission. Farms throughout town will provide fresh, seasonal produce including sweet corn, tomatoes and peaches for you to take home and enjoy. This is a unique opportunity to sample the best North Branford farms have to offer without visiting each farm individually. Proceeds will be used by the Agriculture Commission to promote local farms throughout the coming year, including printing and distribution of the town’s Agriculture Brochure. Weather permitting, hayrides will be offered each afternoon providing fun for the whole family. And for a taste of the truly rural, the Cow Chip Raffle on Sunday offers a grand prize of $2500!

The Bottled Water Ban

by Susan Torres

Could your bottle of water soon be illegal? If you live in Bundanoon, Australia it already is. And if you live in Concord, Massachusetts, it might be soon.


Last year, Bundy (as the local Aussies refer to it) became the first town in the world to ban bottled water. The proposal became an issue the whole town rallied around as this article from Treehugger explains. Out of 400 people who voted on the measure, only two voted against the ban--one of whom was from the bottled water industry. The ban is similar to ones in Los Angeles and San Francisco that no longer make plastic bags available in most grocery stores. With the same environmental concerns in mind, the town of Westport also banned the use of plastic bags in 2008 at all retail stores. Whether it's bags or bottles, many towns across the globe are looking to eliminate plastic as much as possible.

Bike Friendly in Fairfield?

There are currently NO bike friendly communities in the state of Connecticut. While other states out west and even within New England beat us out by a long shot, we still can't manage to be green when it comes to transportation. Back in January, this site posted an article about a group of people in Fairfield who were attempting to get the town government on their side to pave the way for bike friendliness. They're still trying. If they succeed, your town could be next. It just takes one to be a catalyst for change. If you live near Fairfield or visit with any frequency, visit the web site below and state your case. The traffic in your town may depend on it.

http://www.fairfieldct.org/bikewalksurvey.htm

Image courtesy of Treehugger.com.

Boxed Goodes

by Eileen Weber

Pamela Dunn started her own business in one of the worst economic downturns since the Great Depression. She couldn’t be happier about it.

“You have these little moments when you feel like a rock star,” said Dunn, founder of Boxed Goodes, a natural goods business focused on whole grains, rice, beans and spices. Dunn’s business launched last April. Since then, she has seen an increasing number of customers who are interested in how to cook with natural foods. A growing number of consumers are consciously stepping away from foods with artificial ingredients.

Dunn started out as a chef in residence in Litchfield. Because she used whole foods in her cooking, it seemed only natural to jump into this market. “I built the business to compliment the local, seasonal foods in my recipes,” she said.

And how local is her food? Everything she uses for her food demonstrations at local farmer’s markets comes directly from her CSA at Wild Carrot Farm. Deb Parker, the Store Manager at the farm, said her products have been flying off the shelves since they opened for the season in April. “We have lots of customers who don’t know what to do with the produce we sell. They’ve never tried it before,” she said. “But they use one of Pamela’s recipes and her ingredients and it’s a good tie in with the produce. “

Birdhouse Building at Urbanminers This Saturday

What: Bird House Building: Come use reclaimed lumber and reusable materials
to build a birdhouse for your fine, feathered friends. Pre-cut kits and
instruction available by Todd Wormell. All ages welcome! Pre-registration
appreciated. $10 per structure. Tour the facility before or after your
project is complete!

Where: Urban Miners, 30 Manila Ave., Hamden

When: Saturday July 17, 2010, 10 AM - 2 PM

Contact: Pre-register by calling Urban Miners, (203) 287-0852 or by emailing: alexis@ducktruckcomposting.com

Images courtesy of Greenleaf Doll Houses.

Going Local

by Abbie Walston, founder of the Farmer’s Daughter blog

Abigail Rose Walston is mother to Joshua, wife to Ed, an environmentalist, teacher, and blogger. She was raised on her family’s 300 year old farm in Connecticut, where she learned to love animals and nature. She holds both a BS and MS in Biology and Secondary Education, and has taught Biology, Environmental Science, Botany and Forensic Science at the high school level for the last eight years. She’s adjusting to her new role as a nursing mother who also works. She supports sustainable living, shops from local farms, cooks from scratch, gardens, reads, writes, and crafts in her spare time, and blogs about it on her web site.

As part of the 12th generation on my family’s tercentennial farm in North Branford, I’ve been a supporter of Connecticut agriculture since I was a child. Now as an adult, I source food as locally as I can, from growing a victory garden to visiting farms and farmer’s markets. My family’s farm still supplies a lot of our produce, and my husband’s family raises most of our meat. But don’t worry, you don’t have to live on a farm or have agricultural roots to enjoy seasonal, locally grown foods.

Eating locally is good for your family, the local economy and the environment.  One of the best things you can do to provide healthy food for your family and connect with your food and the seasons is to start a garden.  It may be mid-July, but it’s not too late! Here in Connecticut, you can harvest cold-weather crops as late as November without any additional equipment! I’ve had success with peas, spinach, lettuces, scallions and carrots when I planted them in late August, and you can also try parsnips, broccoli, kale or radishes.  If they have a chance to start growing when it’s still hot and the days are long, their growth will slow as the days get shorter and you’ll have a great fall garden!  For garden help, the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station is a wealth of information and advice, from identifying insects and testing soil to tips on varieties of tomatoes to grow. You can also visit the Connecticut Community Gardening Association to learn about community gardening, if you want to start a garden but don’t have the space.

DIRT! at the Audubon Greenwich

Wednesday, July 14th, at 
6:00 pm. Local Wine & Local Cheese Reception,
 7:00 pm. Film Screening (83 min.) & Panel Discussion.

DIRT! The Movie tells the story of Earth’s most valuable and underappreciated source of fertility — from its miraculous beginning to its tragic degradation.

Made from the same elements as stars, plants, and human beings, dirt is very much alive. One teaspoon of dirt contains a billion organisms working in balance to sustain a series of complex, thriving communities that are invisibly a part of our daily lives. This insightful and timely film tells the story of the glorious and unappreciated material beneath our feet.

Narrated by Jamie Lee Curtis and inspired by William Bryant Logan’s acclaimed book Dirt: The Ecstatic Skin of the Earth, DIRT! The Movie introduces viewers to dirt’s fascinating history. Four billion years of evolution have created the dirt that recycles our water, gives us food, and provides us with shelter. But humanity has endangered this vital living resource with destructive methods of agriculture, mining practices, and urban development, with catastrophic results: mass starvation, drought, and global warming.

The filmmakers travel around the world to capture the stories of global visionaries who are discovering new ways to repair humanity’s relationship with soil, checking in with Dr. Vandana Shiva to discuss her fight to prevent world hunger by preserving biodiversity in India, and documenting the tree planting work of renowned photographer Sebastião Salgado and his wife Lélia in Brazil. From farmers rediscovering sustainable agriculture and scientists discovering connections with soil to inmates learning job skills in a prison horticulture program and children eating from edible schoolyards, DIRT! The Movie brings to life the environmental, economic, social, and political importance of soil and suggests ways we can create new possibilities for all life on Earth.

Dirt! The Movie is directed by Bill Benenson and Gene Rosow and produced through Common Ground Media, Inc., a non-profit foundation. Gene Rosow says, "We hope audiences will see the ground beneath their feet in a totally new way and realize that dirt is the living matrix of all terrestrial life on earth, and is the ultimate natural resource that needs to preserved, protected, and nourished."

For more information, visit the Audubon Greenwich web site. Or, call them at 203-869-5272.

Franken-Salmon: Monster or Miracle?

by Catherine Monahon



The FDA is currently in the process of assessing the AquaBounty Technology’s “Franken-Salmon,” a super-sized fish that grows twice as fast as non-modified salmon. Though this product ensures an increase in production, the “bigger is better” (or in this case, “faster is better”) mantra that our society lives by may not placate the concerns of potential consumers.

Genetic modification is not new. Corn, oats, rice, wheat, and many other types of plants have been modified to maximize survival and production rates. However, the development of Franken-Salmon has made it easier to observe the effects on the organism, and the act of changing the genetic make-up of an animal has hopefully forced many to second guess the food on their plates.

The Clean Plate Club

by Eileen Weber

Whenever I take the kids out to a family restaurant, they never finish their meal. Sure, we can take it home and have it for lunch the next day. But too often, our plates are cleared and taken to the kitchen where the leftovers are thrown in the trash. That’s a waste of food and money.

LeanPath, an organization founded in 2004, has developed special software for big and small operations alike to track how much food is going out the door. For large food operations, there is an automated system with a touch-screen terminal called ValuWaste that tracks food on a 24-hour basis. This is ideal for high-volume foodservice operations. But for smaller restaurants, caterers, and other companies, LeanPath’s PC-based WasteLOGGER tracks the food in the same way as the ValuWaste but on a smaller scale.

The Gulf Oil Spill vs. Home Energy Retrofits

from our sponsor Green Star Energy  Solutions

Did we even need to drill the Deepwater Horizon oil well to begin with? Actually, no. There are over 100 million homes in the U.S. Most of them use energy inefficiently because they’re not well insulated or sealed. in fact, the energy contained in the biggest oil spill in U.S. history is equal to the energy that just 75,000 homes waste in a single year.

Seventy-five thousand homes represent less than 0.1 percent of all single-family homes in the U.S. or the number of homes in a single mid-sized U.S. city, like Providence, R.I., or Chattanooga, Tenn. So basically, doing energy retrofits to make those homes efficient would save the equivalent of the entire Gulf Oil Spill every year.

It's everyone's guess how much it’ll end up costing to clean up the disaster created by the Gulf Oil Spill. And when a final number is calculated, years from now, there’s no way that it’ll take into account the true extent of the environmental damage that the oil spill has created. But even in the preliminary estimates made before the oil has finished flowing, the cost is expected to exceed $40 billion.

How much does completing 75,000 home energy retrofits cost - less than $1 billion. And those retrofits – using low-tech and low-cost techniques like better insulation, air sealing, replacing furnaces with more efficient versions – are permanent. And those 75,000 retrofits save energy year after year. Every year that goes by, those 75,000 homes will save the equivalent energy of the entire Gulf Oil Spill.

Rock The Reactors Green Lighting Celebration

Wednesday, July 14, 2010 at 8:00pm
Hiro Ballroom
88th 9th Av. (at 16th st.) New York City

 

On July 14, Bastille Day, at the Hiro Ballroom in Manhattan, we will either celebrate Indian Point getting shut down, or give it a coup de grace, with leaders of the LED industry, and the authors of Green Lighting, a new book by Bill Brinsky, Brian Howard and Seth Leitman, published by McGraw-Hill. The book explores ways to reduce electrical consumption in the US by as much as 20 percent. 

 

Rock The Reactors invites the anti-coal and anti-nuclear leadership, to meet trend setters in the green fashion and design community, creating a strong coalition in support of the work now being done by dozens of IPSEC member organizations trying to prevent another catastrophic accident.

 

Bastille Day at the Hiro Ballroom will also be an East Coast party for the Project Green Search modeling competition, in partnership with Greendrinks, GreenMUA and Global Green USA.

 

Sonic soundscapes provided by Martin Ear. Performance by C.B. Heinemann.

 

For all the information on the event, sponsors, participants, click here.

A Suburban Organic Oasis

Eco-house For Sale - 85 Arch Rd, Avon, CT

Save money & protect your health in this energy-efficient, completely updated home. This is the former home of an environmental engineer and an organic landscape designer! 4 large bedrooms, 3 full baths. Master bedroom on the 1st and 2nd floors. Professional home-office possible. Eat-in kitchen. Formal living room. 5 Skylights in huge sun room with wood stove. Private level lot, fenced, with croquet court & patio. All organic Low-maintenance, irrigated landscaping and gardens. Attached 1 car garage. Safe neighborhood, convenient to shopping & recreation.  

Tons of "Green" features! Eco-features VIDEO: www.dina.prudentialct.com.

• Energy Star certified: Boiler & Central Air & Appliances
• 4 zone programmable thermostats
• Solid Bamboo & Marmoleum flooring
• 100% organic professionally-designed Edible Landscape
• Over 50% of lawn replaced with: perennial flower, fruit, herb & vegetable gardens
• 4-zone water-conserving drip irrigation
• High-efficiency Jotul wood stove
• Thermostat controlled exhaust fans
• Professionally air-sealed and insulated
• Fully insulated hot-water heating piping
• Water efficient plumbing fixtures
• Low VOC paint
• Compact fluorescent lights throughout
• Architect-designed roof allows Winter sun in, but keeps hot summer sun out

For more information, contact Dina Pelletier at dina@edibleorganicdesign.com.

Bike your heart out

With the Tour de France well underway, a new study shows there are more benefits than detriments to urban cycling. True, cyclists breathe in more air pollutants and you run a much greater risk of dying in a traffic accident. But the health benefits of cardio-vascular exercise on a regular basis helps you live longer. Not to mention the fact that biking around town is better for the planet.

See an excerpt below from the news story reported in HealthDay via Yahoo News:

City Cycling Seems to Have More Upsides Than Down
Sun Jul 4, 11:47 pm ET

"The study found that cycling even for a short period of time in traffic can lead to significant exposure to components of car exhaust, such as tiny particles and soot, that may contribute to respiratory and heart problems. Because cyclists tend to breathe about twice as deeply as car drivers, they inhale larger amounts of air pollutants.

The researchers also calculated the risk of dying in a traffic accident as about four times greater per half-mile traveled for cyclists than for car drivers.But they determined that the health benefits for cyclists in The Netherlands were at least nine times greater than the hazards. By switching from driving to cycling, people would, on average, live three to 14 months longer because of increased physical activity. The risks they would face would be potentially losing 0.8 to 40 days of life because of increased exposure to air pollution and an average of five to nine days from a fatal traffic accident."

Click here to read more.

Image courtesy of Examiner.com.

For God's Sake, It's Still Gushing...

It is utterly inconceivable that in this day and age of technology we still have a gush of oil spewing into the Gulf of Mexico. Now, the situation is made even worse by Hurricane Alex, listed as a category 2 whipping up waves that inhibit the clean up. Can this oil spill get any worse? Apparently so, according to articles posted this morning from the Associated Press and Reuters. The spill will break the record by surpassing the 140 million gallon mark. Not a record that should have been broken.

Read excerpts from today's news on the oil spill.