A great little article in Boing Boing brought me to this website that documents of our experiences and projects of a young couple living off the grid:

VelaCreations.com

Technorati Tags: off-grid

An article in the Arizona Republic about our own Farmer Greg:

Phoenix Resident Shares His Green Philosophy - 1/2/2009 Arizona Republic

I found these on ThnkGeek.com.

Captured inside the Sun and Moon Jars are a highly efficient solar cell, a rechargeable battery and low energy LED lamps. When the jar is placed in direct sunlight the solar cell creates an electrical current that charges the battery over a few hours. This energy is then used at night to power the three LED lamps inside the jar.

Click Here for form information

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Greg Peterson is a green living and sustainability innovator who is well-known regionally. He has appeared extensively on local television and radio and is a frequent guest columnist for publications.  His mission is “inspire people to embrace their own greenness,” which he does daily by living what he speaks.  He received his master’s degree in Urban and Environmental Planning (MUEP) in December 2006 from Arizona State University. His academic training has been augmented by 34 years of real world self-study, ownership of multiple businesses and a rich background in entrepreneurship, computer training, software development and management.

As a resident of Phoenix for the last 41 years, Greg is well-versed in urban sustainability and food production in dry lands.  He was first introduced to desert gardening at the age of 12. In 1991, he discovered the concept of permaculture, bringing together many sustainability concepts into one cohesive system.  Then in 2001, Greg created a new concept called the Urban Farm (www.urganfarm.org), a real world environmental showcase home in the heart of Phoenix, Arizona.  He applied his extensive background to transform this 1950’s built tract home into an innovative holistic home site.  The Urban Farmwww.urbanfarm.org), featuring an entirely edible landscape, including over 70 fruit trees, rainwater and greywater harvesting, three solar applications, and extensive use of reclaimed and recycled building materials. The site is opened periodically throughout the year to the public and offers classes, lectures and tours.

His experience in nurturing the Urban Farm gave him an emerging presence in the community and, in 2004, Greg partnered with Don Titmus to create the nonprofit Phoenix Permaculture Guild (www.PhoenixPermaculture.org).  Greg served as the director and organizer of the organization from its inception until December of 2008 and grew the Guild from a few events per year to an organization with a full board and hundreds of events per year.

In 2006, along with his business partner Amy Godfrey, Greg launched YourGuideToGreen (www.YourGuideToGreen.com), an internet portal designed to inspire mainstream consumers to go green by providing the right information and product at the right time in a fun, easy-to-understand, guilt-free way.  YourGuideToGreen has experienced a significant amount of success in both traffic and commerce, experiencing more than a thousand percent growth rate in sales from 2007 to 2008.  Additionally, Amy and Greg host a weekly green living podcast called Freshly Green! (www.FreshlyGreen.com)

Greg Peterson is a writer, teacher, and lecturer on many aspects of sustainability, green living and permaculture.  His passion is to present the concepts so that average people can conceptualize and implement sustainability concepts into their own lives.. He has been a contributing writer for Phoenix Magazine for two years and for Edible Phoenix for three years. He a primary writer and host for the pilot television show Smart Spaces: Inside & Out (www.YourGuideToGreen.com/watch).  His column, aptly named The Green Guy, is available for syndication.  Greg is also a popular speaker on green and sustainability topics for organizations and regularly draws hundreds of people for his Living Green, What Does it Mean? lectures.

Greg is available to speak and write on the following topics: 

• Living Green, What Does it Mean?
• Stop Recycling…Say What?
• Save Money, Live Green
• Create your own Urban Farm
• Edible Landscaping, What it is, Installation
• Greywater and Rainwater Harvesting, Uses, Installations, Concepts
• Permaculture
• Sustainability, What the heck does it mean?
• Greening Your Home, Life, the World
• Urban Orcharding, Urban Fruit Production
• Urban Food Systems, Chickens, Composting, Desert Gardening
• Living Green and Your Health
• The Green Living Continuum
• Community and Food Integration, 

One would not expect to find such a sanctuary growing in the heart of Urban Phoenix…and why not? Transforming a residential landscape into an edible delight is my inspiration behind the Urban Farm.  Sink your teeth into a juicy pear, add some fresh basil to your favorite dish or sauté some seasonal vegetables; all found within your arms reach right in our yard. The Urban Farm not only awakens the possibility to reconnect with the earth and agriculture in simple, practical ways, but it also nourishes the promise of a future that will sustain life for years to come.

From a practical standpoint the Urban Farm is a 1/3rd acre in north central Phoenix a mere 80 feet wide and 160 feet deep.  I purchased my home in 1989, primarily to garden and have spent the last two decades transforming the landscape into edible.  Then in 2001 as a result of my undergraduate work at Arizona State University I shifted gears and began including many other green technologies on the site such as solar panels, green remodeling & building, rainwater and greywater harvesting.  The same year The Urban Farm was born and I began opening up the yard to tours and classes to teach others about urban green living.  The Urban Farm has always been my hobby - I often tell people I just can’t help myself.

Please enjoy the UrbanFarm.org website and if you are in Phoenix on the day of a tour please stop in.  To find out about our extensive list of events visit our Event section on this web site or register for our monthly event email.  To learn more about what I do when I am not gardening please visit http://www.YourGuideToGreen.com or my blog at http://www.yourguidetogreen.com/TheUrbanFarm/

SEATTLE - Washington residents looking to safely get rid of old computers and TVs can do so for free when a new statewide recyclingprogram begins next year.

A state law that starts Jan. 1 allows consumers to bring unwanted computer monitors, laptops and TVs to 200 permanent collection sites at no charge.

Click Here to read the article

Technorati Tags: recycling

I found this really great article on the PakBec blog about the whole notion of biodegradable plastics.

What we need to do is recognize plastics as a valuable material resource, and then collect and recover plastics much like they do in Europe.

Landfills are designed to entomb things, not to encourage biodegradation

Click Here to read the article

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My friend Rachel Matesz has written a great blog post about Lava Lake Lamb:

Lava Lake Ranch raises certified organic lamb the way nature intended. The lambs drink their mother’s milk and graze on pesticide- and herbicide-free grasses, herbs, forbes and legumes, such as alfalfa, for their entire lives. They’re not confined and they’re never given grain, growth hormones, or antibiotics.

Click Here to read her article

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Drake Landing Solar Community.

The Drake Landing Solar Community (DLSC) is a master planned neighbourhood in the Town of Okotoks, Alberta, Canada that has successfully integrated Canadian energy efficient technologies with a renewable, unlimited energy source - the sun. The result is the first community to obtain all its water and space-heating needs from solar energy.

SOlar panels on the roof of every garage heat a glycol solution. The heated glycol travels along the roof overhang, down the end of the garage, and underground through a shallow buried trench system until it arrives at a heat exchanger within the community’s Energy Centre. The heat exchanger transfers heat to the water stored in a short-term storage tank.

During the warmer months, the heated water is distributed from the short-term storage tank to the borehole thermal energy storage (BTES) system via a series of pipes. The pipes run through a collection of 144 holes that stretch thirty-seven meters below the ground and cover an area thirty-five metres in diameter.

As the heated water travels through the pipe-work, heat is transferred to the surrounding earth. The temperature of the earth will reach 80 degrees Celsius by the end of each summer.

To keep the heat in, the BTES is covered with sand, high-density R-40 insulation, a waterproof membrane, clay, and other landscaping materials.

Click Here to learn more.

Technorati Tags: Drake Landing, Solar Heating

From Rainwater Harvesting For Drylands comes this:

Arizona has some great financial incentives for water harvesting, which other states could replicate. But more folks need to take advantage of them.

The State of Arizona will give Arizona taxpayers a one-time tax credit for a “water conservation system” (defined as a system to harvest residential rainwater and/or greywater). The credit is for 25% of the cost of the system (up to a maximum of $1,000).
Builders are eligible for an income tax credit of up to $200 per residence unit constructed with a water conservation system installed.

Click Here to read the article

Technorati Tags: rainwater harvesting