skills to pay the bills (or at least save a little dough)

Got a hankerin' to make stuff, but don't know how? In a time when people are pinching pennies out of necessity or just to consume less for the good of the planet, it helps to know there are some free ways to learn a few new tricks.

Check it out...

Thursday, August 27 (that's tomorrow!)

Lori Gibbs and Atom Cianfarani want to teach you how to GreenIt Yourself this Thursday with a green roof and gardening in small spaces Workshop. At the Toyota Children's Garden (one of New York Restoration Project's babies) from 7 pm to 8 pm. And there will be refreshments!

Toyota Children's Garden
603 East 11th Street, New York, NY


Friday, August 28 (in prep for Saturday, October 10)

Okay, this one's a little bit preemptive, and maybe not so free, but it comes pretty darn close. This concert, featuring local bands, will help fund a day of skill sharing on October 10 at the Brooklyn Skillshare.

On Saturday, October 10, you're gonna learn all kinds of crazy stuff: ricotta-making, liquor-infusing, kombucha-brewing, screenprinting, and a whole lot more. The door price is based on a sliding scale ($10 suggested), so pay what you can.

The fundraising show that's this Saturday, on the other hand, is $7 and features local acts like The XYZ Affair and Gunfight!.

Get all the details for the event and the fund-raising-music-show at the trusty e-newsletter of my favorite borough, Brooklyn Based.


Monday, August 31
So you want to use a reusable shopping bag but don't want to shell out the dollars to get one? How's about making one for yourself? Learn how at this free workshop - 3rd Ward's Sweatshop Social. You supply the fabric (an old t-shirt perhaps?), they supply the notions and the (cheap) beer. Bring your own cup and the suds are just a buck.

[via Brooklyn Based]


And for all you green thumb wannabes...
More free events coming soon to Brooklyn Botanic Garden through their GreenBridge Program (these are free, but ya gotta register - so sign up right quick!).

Street Tree Care
Thursday, September 17, 6 to 8 pm
Thursday, November 5, 6 to 8 pm
Street trees do much to improve our environment, but they often receive little care. In this class, learn the benefits of street trees and how to improve the health of a street tree by caring for its bed. Get tips on amending soil, mulching, watering, pruning, and tree-bed gardening. Bring your street-tree care questions and find out more about the city's efforts to increase and protect the urban forest canopy.

Starting a Children's Garden
Thursday, October 15, 6 to 8 pm
Would you like to develop a children's garden at your school, block association, or neighborhood organization? This workshop will provide tips for adult leaders who want to organize a children's gardening program. Learn how to plan your program and what tools and plant materials are needed to get growing. You will receive a free activity booklet and visit our children's education greenhouse for hands-on activities.

Getting to Know Your Soil
Wednesday, October 28, 6 to 8 pm
Interested in knowing more about your soil? Concerned about safely growing food in urban soils? This class will demonstrate several easy diagnostic activities for learning about your soil. How to take a soil sample for testing will be demonstrated as well as interpreting lab results. You'll also receive tips on improving urban soils.

Rainwater Harvesting
Thursday, October 22, 6 to 8 pm
Learn the benefits of reducing your dependence on NYC water and minimizing storm water flows into our sewers by collecting rainwater for use in your garden. It's easy to use roofs from nearby buildings and garden sheds to harvest rainwater. Come learn about the different types of rainwater harvesting systems being used throughout NYC community gardens from simple pickle barrels to large tanks, and get tips on how to build your own.

Introduction to Permaculture
Tuesday, November 10, 6 to 8 pm
Permaculture is a design approach based on interpreting natural patterns for human benefit. Learning how to read the land and planning for long-term development are two objectives of this workshop. Permaculture works on all scales and levels. Discussion will cover topics ranging from choosing and using plants in groupings to observing and utilizing the elemental forces of wind, water, and sun.

do chickens get seasick?

Below the BQE, in a barren industrialized part of Brooklyn, was docked the Waterpod...

Do chickens get seasick? Does sea air help or hinder the tomatoes? If you get a chance to visit the Waterpod – 3,000 square foot living 'art-installation' barge – could you do me a favor and ask these questions? A combination of heat and a weekend's worth of permaculture lessons fried my noodle when I went to visit the operation on the Brooklyn waterfront last Sunday.

Here are some things to look forward to on your visit (they're currently docked in Staten Island):


Bucky, eat your heart out.


Hey, your squash is hanging out!


These ladies are just minding their own business.


Grey water filtration system - awesome!


There shouldn't be a mutiny on this bounty. (Ouch!)


Looks like a healthy tomato crop - no scurvy here


Some worthy shipmates saving amaranth seeds


Inside the living room - it was pretty cozy I'll have to admit


Get the poop on the Waterpod

And some press on NY Times

follow this man: will allen

If you didn't catch this weekend's New York Times Magazine, you missed out on an article about one of the best role models for young Americans, and heck, old ones too. Will Allen -- urban farmer, master composter, down-to-earth guy -- is creating a community of people who care more about the food they put in their bodies, especially city dwellers who don't have access to healthful food.



An excerpt:

Like others in the so-called good-food movement, Allen, who is 60, asserts that our industrial food system is depleting soil, poisoning water, gobbling fossil fuels and stuffing us with bad calories. Like others, he advocates eating locally grown food. But to Allen, local doesn’t mean a rolling pasture or even a suburban garden: it means 14 greenhouses crammed onto two acres in a working-class neighborhood on Milwaukee’s northwest side, less than half a mile from the city’s largest public-housing project.

And this is why Allen is so fond of his worms. When you’re producing a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of food in such a small space, soil fertility is everything. Without microbe- and nutrient-rich worm castings (poop, that is), Allen’s Growing Power farm couldn’t provide healthful food to 10,000 urbanites — through his on-farm retail store, in schools and restaurants, at farmers’ markets and in low-cost market baskets delivered to neighborhood pickup points. He couldn’t employ scores of people, some from the nearby housing project; continually train farmers in intensive polyculture; or convert millions of pounds of food waste into a version of black gold.

Read the rest

red hook harvest

This past Saturday my friend Anne and I hopped on our bikes (after the helpful guys at Bicycle Station put Anne's bike chain back on) and headed down to the Red Hook Harvest Festival hosted by Added Value and Herban Solutions at Red Hook Community Farm.


Truer words were never written

We arrived just in time to get a tutorial from Classie Parker on canning for the leaner months. She showed us how to "put some love into" pickled onions and dilly beans and we sampled some of her delicious canned peaches. Spectators were able to participate by canning their own veggies.

Classie's puttin' her love into it


Classie shows them how to can-can

There were all kinds of activities for kids: pumpkin picking and a carving contest, bite the apple on the string, and Halloween costume making from fabric scraps. Families had the opportunity to pet the farm's chickens (whom, I'd like to add, were extraordinarily handsome).

Pickin' pumpkins at the pumpkin patch


Here chickie-chickies


That's one handsome chicken!


Swaying and bobbing for apples

Local restaurants including Applewood, The Good Fork, iCi, and Rice were serving up delicious soups and savories. I was happy to see that Rice sends their compost to the farm in these buckets.

Rice's compost buckets

Companies like Tri-State Biodiesel, orgs like Brooklyn Greenway Initiative (we rode on part of the new bike path on the way to the fest), and nonprofits like Heifer International were on hand to answer questions and provide information to the public.

Local musicians provided entertainment, local students offered up African dance lessons, and the local farm stand was set up to sell fresh produce and meats.

Some of the entertainment

It was a beautiful, sunny day that brought together an urban community in an agrarian way.


Learn more about canning farm fresh food

• FreshPreserving.com
• Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving (new edition)
  by Judi Kingry and Lauren Devine

chris elliot and gerry mulligan's tips for green living

Chris and Gerry teach us how to compost [via The Late Show with David Letterman]



But seriously, why should anyone compost? For starters, more than 60% of household waste is recyclable or compostable. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 25% of the food we make each year is trashed. The EPA also reported that in 2005, food scraps accounted for 12% of all landfill waste in the US. This waste contributes to the release of methane -- a greenhouse gas that's 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide -- into the atmosphere. And we all know by now that releasing all that greenhouse gas into the environment contributes to climate change.

So here are some resources for the novice or more experienced composter or gardener:

Books on Composting

• Basic Composting: All the Skills and Tools You Need to Get Started by Erich Ebeling
• Let it Rot! A Gardener's Guide to Composting by Stu Campbell
• Garden My Heart: Organic Strategies for Backyard Sustainability (Kindle Edition) by Cecil Bothwell
• Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis
• Worms Eat My Garbage: How to Set Up and Maintain a Worm Composting System by Mary Appelhof
  
  

Composting Contraptions

• Naturemill (especially for pets version)
  This is supposed to be the best indoor composter on the market -- great for apartment dwellers. A quick tutorial here
• Green Gusanito Factory of Worms
  If you're into vermicomposting, this worm farm is for you!
• Norpro 94 Stainless Steel Composter Keeper
  Useful for storing food scraps before bringing them to the compost heap; air fresh
  

Composting Tips

• 30 Unexpected and Unusual Things You Can Put in the Compost [EcoSalon]
• Composting 101 [Marquis Project]
• How to Make Compost Tea [Pennsylvania DEP]

Sources:
NRDC. The Past, Present and Future of Recycling. (3/28/08)
EPA. Why Is Food Waste an Issue?