what are you doing to live lightly on the earth?

[DoubleDogFarm]

Have you thought about growing King Stropharia mushrooms to help filter the stream-bed?

"Garden Giant"
No, Not as a filtering media. I do want to try the shallow pit filled with wood chip technique. The cattails will do the filtering.

Also, there's fragrant water Acorus grown in Japan for medicinal herb

Had to look this one up. This plant looks alot like our native Sedge. Sedge and Rush both live in low wet areas. Both would probably be good for filtering, but not sure about edibility.

Eric

[rainbowgardener]

Yesterday was 10.10.10. 350.org, Sierra Club, and a number of other environmental organizations combined to make this a global environmental awareness/ service day. There were over 7000 local eco-service projects all around the world, in almost every country. (If you go to www.350.org you can see pictures of lots of them.) The one in my area was building a hoop house to extend the growing season at a downtown urban garden.


The garden is half an acre right on the edge of downtown. As of this Feb, it was two abandoned buildings, which were torn down to clear the space. Now it is a beautiful garden with plots owned by the inner city residents, who otherwise are living in a "food desert" with no nearby groceries. Now they are gardening, their children are gardening, they are eating fresh organic food, and they can sell the excess to a farmers market two blocks away for a little income. And now with our help, they can do all this more months of the year. It's eco-friendly because local food isn't trucked and the farmer's market provides training for all the growers in organic garden techniques.

And it was a wonderful (tho' HOT!) day. 60+ people showed up, more than there was work for, so some of them went around the neighborhood picking up trash and recyclables. The rest of us cleared the space and put up the hoop house in one day (I did weeding; seems to be my mission in life! ). It felt like an old-fashioned barn raising, lots of fun, someone drumming, lots of kids running around, women pounding rebar with sledge hammers and men carrying babies (and vice versa). All different kinds of people having a great time together doing this project.

And part of the point of course was to also be visible... there were speakers and media and we are contacting our elected representatives to let them know that the people are working to save the planet... The pols can lead, follow, or get out of our way, but we will get it done!

I would do it again next weekend if someone would organize a project!

[img]https://i602.photobucket.com/albums/tt102/rainbowgardener/10-10-10/FindlayMarket19JPG.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i602.photobucket.com/albums/tt102/rainbowgardener/10-10-10/FindlayMarket17JPG.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i602.photobucket.com/albums/tt102/rainbowgardener/10-10-10/FindlayMarket8.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i602.photobucket.com/albums/tt102/rainbowgardener/10-10-10/FindlayMarket34.jpg[/img]

[DoubleDogFarm]

On 10/10/10, people at 7347 events in 188 countries got to work on the climate crisis.

People joined together to dig community gardens, install solar panels, plant trees and more. we're sending a clear message to our political leaders: “if we can get to work, so can you

This is really cool. There's a lot more to do, to go from 388/392 down to 350ppm.


Eric

[DoubleDogFarm]

Rainbow,

You said they tore down buildings to create this open green space. Very cool and we need more of this, but was the soil tested for heavy metal. Lead paint, esbestos, etc....


Eric

[gixxerific]

Very cool RBG I had no idea. There was about 6-7 events very close to me.

I singed up to find out about future moves.

[rainbowgardener]

Rainbow,

You said they tore down buildings to create this open green space. Very cool and we need more of this, but was the soil tested for heavy metal. Lead paint, esbestos, etc....


Eric

I don't know, but they didn't plant directly into the soil. Laid down cardboard and then brought in mountains of compost, wood chips, leaves, etc and planted into that. Of course the cardboard breaks down and plants will eventually root down into soil, but at least there's some buffer zone. While we were down there, there was still a small mountain of compost sitting around. Some of that will go into the hoop house as we also constructed grow tables to go inside it.

[DoubleDogFarm]

Rainbow,

This seems to be the first question that pops into my head, but I have never tested my own soil.

Have you seen any of the Will Allen videos on Youtube? Will is CEO of Growing Power. They do a lot of Aquaponics in their greenhouses. They believe old abandoned buildings could be converted into urban food production.

This is one of many videos about Growing Power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EpTWQWx1MQ&feature=related

Eric

[rainbowgardener]

I not only saw the Will Allen videos, I saw Will Allen himself, in person. He came to town and gave a lecture/slideshow.

I posted about it here:

https://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=165719&highlight=allen#165719

He's the inspiration for the project we were working on and some of the young inner city residents whose garden it is came to his lecture and asked him questions.

[Runningtrails]

This is a fantastic idea! There are several empty lots in town here that could be converted into grow space. If I had the time, I'd participate.