Down On The Urban Farm

I found a great article i the New York Times about urban farmers for hire.

The author says:

Two months ago, I learned about My Farm, run by mortgage-broker-turned-farmer Trevor Paque.

For a small fee, Paque helps you create an urban farm in your own back yard and visits once a week to tend it.

After just three months in business, Paque has a waiting list of over 200 people and is scrambling to keep up with demand.

Doers anyone else sense a business opportunity?

What can you grow in Arizona? When should you plant it!

Our climate here is so different that conventional wisdom does not apply.

Greg Peterson and Matt Suhr have published a planting and harvest calendar specifically for our desert urban farms.

In it you will find 76 different fruits and vegetables you can grow in Arizona.

You've heard of . What about The Texas Plan?

Click Here to read more.

I like pedestrian-friendly places (don't we all?)

I have fond memories of strolling Koenigstrasse in Stuttgart, window-shopping, people-watching, and buying meals from street vendors. IN LOndon I have been know to spend the day strolling from Covent Garden to the West End.

I found this cool site:

http://www.walkscore.com/

Walkscore not only can tell you the walkability score of any address (Mine is 26 out of 100 - low but not the worst either). It also does a mashup with Google maps to show you the shops and restaurants within walking distance .

Pretty cool. Give it a try!

You can barely hear the sound of bulldozers breaking ground on the new housing development across the street over the buzzing of the bees and scattered conversations.

On the corner of Rockingstone Road and Ardwell is the Spryfield Urban Farm garden. The preserved patch of green, as it sits now, was created four years ago by the Urban Farm Museum Society of Spryfield (UFMSS). The seed of an idea to create this, one of two urban gardens run by the UFMSS, was planted back in 1996.

Read More...

George Irwin builds green structures for a living, but his latest project aspires to rebuild lives. This summer, Irwin is donating a vertical urban farm for residents of Los Angeles' graffiti-scarred Central City East.

Read More...

How would you like to help the environment and make some easy money while doing it?

Almost everyone has at least one old cellphone laying around. We all know that we shouldn't just throw them in the trash. A company called PaceButler Corporation will buy your old cellphone:

http://www.pacebutler.com/cell.cfm

A new San Francisco company named One Blog Off The Grid (1BOG) is using bulk purchasing to drive down the cost of solar power for SF homeowners. 1BOG's goal is to help cut the price of solar installations in half. Their strategy is to get an organized group of homeowners in a neighborhood to all go for it together.

"People don’t want to be the first one on their street to install solar, to go through the permitting process, etc.," she says. "So we identify others who are interested so you don’t feel alone. There is a level of comfort that we bring."

Read More...

I read an >a href="http://planetgreen.discovery.com/food-health/eat-green-lose-weight.html">interesting article over on Planet Green this morning about the environmental benefits of eating healthier.

Think of the energy that goes into making that pint of Ben & Jerry's. One candy bar each day from the vending machine equals several cases of them over a year. In those terms, the impact due to manufacturing and transportation of all those Milky Ways is an eye-opener.

Grow your own apples and carrots and peas and cantaloupe. Snacking on them is not only a lot healthier but a lot better for the environment. There is also that certain smug satisfaction of having grown them yourself.

I found this great article in the online version of IEEE's Spectrum magazine about First Solar, located in Tempe, Arizona:

It’s easy to make a small pile of money off photovoltaic cells but very hard to make a big one. The reason is one of the most fundamental in free-market economics: the larger the market you aim for, the more competitors you’ll have to face.

If you just want to power a billion-dollar space probe, almost any price per watt is acceptable. If you are selling to lonely farmhouses, you just have to charge less than the cost of running a power line to the boondocks. In some parts of the world, competing with grid electricity itself may be an easy game during peak consumption hours. But if you want the off-peak market, you’ll have to price your cells at about US $1 per watt. That price is called grid parity, and it’s the holy grail of the photovoltaic industry. At least 80 firms around the world, from Austin to Osaka, are in the chase.

Surprisingly, at the moment no company is closer to that grail than a little start-up called First Solar, which until very recently had been known only to specialists. It’s located in Tempe, Ariz., and analysts agree that it will very likely meet typical grid-parity prices in developed countries in just two to four years. It’s got a multibillion-dollar order book, it’s selling all the cells it can make, it’s adding production capacity as fast as it can, and its stock price has rocketed from $25 to more than $250 in just 18 months.

Read More

There is a technique the Hypermiling gurus call Forced Auto Stop (FAS) that involves taking the car out of gear - or even shutting the engine off - when coasting downhill.

One of the interesting things about my 2008 HOnda Accord is that the onboard computer does this automatically. WHen the car is coasting downhill, the throttle is closed, and the RPM is above idle, it automatically shuts off the fuel to the injectors.

Because the Accord shuts down 3 of its six cylinders when just driving along steady-state, I find that I get slightly better fuel economy by accelerating from a stop at a normal pace than if I accelerate at a very slow pace - it allows the engine to go into three-cylinder mode sooner.

In case you didn't know, our online store sells these really cool tinted stainless steel water bottles.

We are all trying to break the 'disposable plastic water bottle' habit, and when doing so the choices generally are:

• Reusable Plastic
• Aluminum
• Stainless Steel

Aluminum has health issues, and so stainless steel is considered to be the best choice.

Sometimes we get feedback asking why our tinted stainless steel water bottles are not 'Made In The USA'. EVERY stainless bottle is made in China. Most of the plastic and aluminum are made there also. Welooked for over a year and a half to no avail.
We've looked at all the manufacturers and chose New Wave Enviro, as they meet our high quality standards regarding ethical production.

Also note that the tinted stainless steel water bottles are not dishwasher-safe or freezer-safe. Wash them with a mild dish soap or baking soda and/or vinegar wash. Add a small amount of chosen cleaner and shake w/top on or use a bottle brush then rinse.

"Dang, Greg, You clean up pretty good!"

When not digging in the dirt of his Urban Farm, Greg Peterson enjoys speaking on the subjects of sustainability and urban farming. Greg was on The Dr. Pat Show a few months ago and has a profile on her site. I think Greg needs to start appearing in those bio photos wearing coveralls ;-)

Click Here to find out more

What does a farmer do when developers look at the land and see mini-malls, tract houses - and dollar signs? Joe Johnston, a farmer in Gilbert, Arizona, decided to keep his 160 acres (thank you very much) and create his own community, one where he wanted to continue living and working. Thus begat Agritopia.

The Agritopia Project is an effort to design and build a neighborly community around an urban farm. The project is under construction and is being built in the Town of Gilbert on a farm owned by the Johnston family. Driven by principle rather than economics alone, the project attempts to solve several problems common in current development neighborhoods lacking character and livability and the complete elimination of Arizona's agricultural heritage.

(via Poptech)

Online University has published 50 Simple Techniques that Will Increase Your Gas Mileage

OK, you are trying to kick the 'disposable bottled water' habit but your tap water tastes awful? Yup, been there, done that.

What do you do? Let's say that you consume the contents of one water bottle per day, and let's say each one costs two bucks. That means for the cost of about two-month's worth of those nasty things, you could buy a nice high-quality water filter.

We sell one in our store:

Premium 10-Stage Water Filter

• The 10-Stage Filtration System contains the premier, patented, 10-Stage contaminant removing filter. It lasts three times as long as the common carbon block filters.
• The 10-Stage Filtration System filters contaminants by bonding the contaminants with the media inside the filter. Traditional Carbon Block filters sieve some contaminants causing the filter to clog easily.
• New Wave Enviro will remind you by post card or e-mail when it is time to change your cartridge. Simply mail them your warranty card so they can remind you.

When doctors recommend drinking eight glasses of water a day, they certainly don't expect us to put our health at risk in the process! You see, although our water is processed it is far from pure. In fact, sometimes it contains many different toxins, chemicals, pesticides and organic material that may jeopardize our health, even if it is just absorbed by our skin in the shower.

When water arrives at our homes from the public water supply, it already has lived a long life and seen many things. After undergoing a series of filtration processes during which solid material settles and is separated out, drinking water is commonly treated with chlorine and fluoride. Chlorine is one of the most widely used public-water-supply disinfectants and is used to kill harmful pathogens. Fluoride was once thought to be beneficial because it helped treat dental deficiencies, but now dentists warn against using it in infant formula because it is known to cause discoloration of the teeth, arthritis, bone cancer, osteoporosis, and increase bone fractures.

You know there is chlorine present when you get that funky taste in tap water. In the past it was used to rid our water system of typhoid fever, cholera and dysentery. Today, chlorine is known to cause respiratory complications, according to the American Council of Industrial Hygienist, and when combined with organic material such as decaying leaves, it creates a toxic byproduct called trihalmoethanes (THMs), a known carcinogen.

It is particularly important to filter chlorine in your bathrooms--especially in your shower. When water is heated, the chlorine is more readily released as a gas so when the shower gets nice and steamy, we inhale this toxic gas. Also, hair-stylists say that 50 percent of their clients have chlorine-damaged hair. In addition to hair, skin suffers from chlorine as it is known to heighten the appearance of premature aging. Installing a filter on your showerhead will help protect your health while persevering the natural beauty of your hair and skin.

The Environmental Protection Agency is responsible for setting the National Primary Drinking Water Standards. The EPA claims that more than 90% of America's tap water is safe to drink and exceeds drinking water standards; some public water utilities monitor up to 103 contaminants, but the EPA only requires that standards be met for the 80 most harmful toxins and neglects to test for many agricultural and industrial pollutants.

In addition to concerns about chlorine and fluoride in drinking water, there are other pollutants that occur outside the water-treatment plant. The EPA estimates that 20% of lead exposure is from drinking water which is contaminated by old-house plumbing and can cause major neurological damage. Dartmouth University found that arsenic, a known carcinogen, is a common contaminant in New Hampshire, Maine, the Southwest and the Rockies because it enters from the surrounding bedrock. Private residences in these areas with their own wells often have an arsenic problem that goes undetected for a long period of time.

If you are interested in purchasing a more comprehensive filter system than just a showerhead, consider carbon filters, which target contaminants that cause unusual odors and tastes, such as chlorine. There are several types of carbon filters--

• Point of Entry filter: attached where the water supply enters the house and provides filtration for the entire house.
• Faucet Mounted filter: attached at the faucet-head, providing individual filtration.
• In-line filter: located underneath the sink and attached to the cold water line it leaves the hot water unfiltered.

If you have more serious contamination issues such as arsenic or lead, there are other options. A reverse osmosis system is an all-in-one unit that incorporates filters, membranes, and tanks and is effective at removing inorganic compounds such as nitrates, along with sediment and unusual odors and tastes. This system tends to be expensive to install and costly to repair. Another option is a distiller that purifies your water as steam condenses onto distillers and then cools and drips into a separate container, leaving impurities behind. This unit can be expensive to install and maintain and requires electricity to run. For arsenic problems, a specialized filtration system is required.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery said it best in Wind, Sand and Stars (1939), "Water, thou hast no taste, no color, no odor; canst not be defined, art relished while ever mysterious. Not necessary to life, but rather life itself, thou fillest us with a gratification that exceeds the delight of the senses."

Authored By Maura Yates