Green Options

Urban environments beg for a breather – especially when summer rolls around. This holds true even for urban seascapes such as L.A., our country’s second largest city and known for its metropolitan sprawl. Thanks in part to Guru Energy Drink, a recent sponsor of Greening Hollywood, and Whole Food’s most popular energy drink, I was able to invite a couple of friends to join me day tripping up to a nature estate in Ojai.
Not too long ago, I befriended a fashion designer specialized in sustainable leather goods – one who makes chrome-free leather boots, jewelry and accessories. Her name is Calleen Cordero and she has a following both in L.A. and internationally, in cities like Berlin. Her pieces are       [Pictured: Main House at Calliote]

fashionable, infused with quality craftsmanship and it’s only after the fact that one realizes their environmental aspect.

While speaking with her initially, however, we found ourselves on the subject of Ojai and the Ojai Foundation which has been teaching the arts of permaculture and sustainability back when these were “fringe” paths pursued by the hippie-culture. Ojai is the small “art town,” set back in the hills off the 101, between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. These days The Ojai Foundation is focused on “Council” a program they have been taking out to area schools in the local and surrounding counties.  What is “Council?”

The success of organic foods was never a sure bet in South Korea. Since the Korean word for pesticides literally means “plant medicines” many Koreans have had a difficult time seeing what’s wrong with using them. But today’s ultra health conscious Korean is becoming more environmentally savvy too. Today, words like “blossom” and “bloom” are too mild to describe the exploding popularity of organic foods and environmentalism in South Korea.

The Obamas could change America and the world if they were to swap out some of their White House lawn for an organic or biodynamic garden.  But what about YOUR backyard?  Heck, for that matter, what about your front yard?

Hiring a good landscape designer knowledgeable about permaculture and organic/biodynamic gardening would be a terrific step toward food independence for you and your family.  With Monsanto and other agribusiness contributing $60+ million to political campaigns last year, to Republicans by a wide margin (but down from almost a 4:1 ratio just 8 years ago, as an interesting aside probably affiliated with the growing interest in ethanol), isn’t it time to take some money and power away from them?  One easy way to do that is to start growing your own food, free of GMOs, free of chemicals, and free of transportation pollution required to bring it to your kitchen. 

Many gardeners are familiar with the yearly pattern of creating and mending garden beds, starting seedlings, transplanting, watering plants, and then finally harvesting their favorite vegetables. It’s a lot of work to go through each year.

But unfamiliar to many gardeners are perennial vegetables — vegetables that do not require annual plantings, and provide fruit, leaf, and shoot year after year without constant replanting effort.

Most familiar is perhaps asparagus, but there are dozens of other perennial vegetables, and taking advantage of these varieties will save you time and energy throughout your gardening years, in addition to promoting a healthier garden ecology.

Last night, Scott Kellogg from the Rhizome Collective spoke at Charis Books in Little Five Points. He talked about permaculture and taking back the word sustainability.

[Creative Commons photo by Chad Hanna]

Marketers and large corporations have co-opted the word sustainability to sell products. It’s come to mean expensive bamboo counter tops and organic cotton bedding. We need to take back that word to its original meaning. Sustainability is living within your means. It’s closing the waste cycle and finding ways to turn trash into something that’s usable again. Last night, Kellogg talked about some ways that Rhizome is accomplishing these things. Ways that we can, too!

The Rhizome Collective operates out of a warehouse in Austin, Texas. Their mission is “to build the world [they] want to live in” through community organizing and education.

When the Collective got started, the warehouse where they work was centered on an asphalt courtyard. They pulled together to remove the asphalt and mulch the land. Now, the Rhizosphere Educational Center is home to a garden, rainwater harvesting, a polyculture pond, micro-livestock, and solar and wind energy collection. By designing these systems and living sustainably and through their workshops, they hope to help educate other communities about self-reliance.

For the next week, the City of Santa Monica is featuring a variety of events related to sustainability. With so much going on, you’re sure to find an event of interest to you.

 

• 9/18: Find out about the successes and challenges of building a sustainable city at the 2008 Sustainable City Report Card Update at the Santa Monica Main Library, 7pm
• 9/21: Take part in a community potluck, a natural cob building workshop, permaculture design class, seed planting, live art, and more at the Westside Permaculture Festival at Sustainable Works and Santa Monica College, 12pm

I recently had the pleasure of speaking to Florida-based builder, Susan Horn of Artisan Builders, who donates her time to help design and build eco-friendly playhouses (shown left) that are auctioned off to benefit a local charity she supports.

Horn has been building and living green since before there was a definition of “green living.” When her community built a brand new, beautiful (and toxic) school, she and a number of

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I’m always on the lookout for interesting new events that expand my knowledge, and introduce me to new people and ideas. Two such events are coming up over the next week in the Los Angeles area.

First up, this Sunday from 6pm - 8pm, a permaculture workshop will be held at All Shades of Green. For the uninitiated, like me, permaculture is generally defined as, “a system of perennial agriculture emphasizing the use of renewable natural resources and the enrichment of local ecosystems.” In layman’s terms, it refers to the design of agricultural systems that mimic natural systems.

The workshop will cover topics like building healthy soil, attracting wildlife, and landscape design. The facilitator, Melinda Joy Miller, founder of the Shambhalla Institute, is also a renowned feng shui master, so she brings those elements to bear as well.

Most environmentally aware Americans would love a personal organic vegetable garden, but how many people actually have the time to cultivate one?. Thanks to a San Francisco-based company called MyFarm, Bay Area denizens can pay a weekly fee to have a backyard garden designed and maintained by professionals.

Customers choose between a Personal Installation (just enough food for themselves) and an Owner Member Installation (enough food for MyFarm to sell to other members). Owner members receive a discounted membership.

The company leaves no gardening detail ignored. Each garden is tested for toxins and receives a drip irrigation system to automatically water the vegetables. MyFarm even maintains a compost pile and takes care of all pesky weeds that arise.

The Transition Town initiative has been a fast-growing movement in the United Kingdom for over a year, with more than 50 towns currently signed up. Now the United States is catching up as Boulder, CO becomes the first official transition town in the country.

The Transition Town movement started in Kinsale, Ireland when permaculture teacher Rob Hopkins started thinking about the possibilities of applying permaculture theories to entire towns, instead of just to individual plots of land. Hopkins’ Energy Descent Action Plan provides a blueprint for towns hoping to transition to a more sustainable way of life.

Boulder County Going Local is an ambitious effort to prepare the area for the ramifications of climate change and peak oil.