If so, check out this website and it will connect you with your nearest food pantry that can take the veggies. 

Let's share the harvest!

http://www.ampleharvest.org/index.php

This is kind of beyond the scope of Pittsburgh, but we are all a big global family and the preservation of biodiversity is important for all of us. 

There is a station in Russia that is home to a large amount of crop seeds and genetic diversity from around the world.  It's important for the future of our agricultural systems.  Currently it is threatened by development.

If you are interested in reading more about the issue, here is the link to sign a petition.

http://bit.ly/d2H96s

Sunday, August 29th at 7:30 pm.  Film screening and discussion.

This is a film screening that I am hosting for the Rainforest Action Network.  The film demonstrates how our purchasing decisions connect to the destruction of rainforests in Indonesia and other southeast Asian countries. 

Come learn what you can do about it.  The film will be shown in Squirrel Hill.  Details can be found at this link.

http://events.ran.org/hotaugustnights/events/show/11999

So, I recently tried to save some tomato seeds by putting them on a ceramic plate for a few days...needless to say it was a novice move and didn't work out too well. 

I did a little searching and came across this link on one way to save your tomato seeds...I'm going to try this method next.

 

http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/save-tomato-seeds.html

I live in the Carrick area and have found the perfect spot for a community garden . I contacted the owner everything seemed to be going fine then all of the sudden things got crazy .  Insurance , ownership , back taxes and I've hit a wall .  Most of you know how beneficial a community garden can be and I want so much for it to happen . The only way I can get help from the city is if the land is given up or taken away from the owner .  I don't know how to tell him this .

  I really would like to get this lot gutted out before winter .  Planted by next spring . Come harvest season all the food will be going to the free farmers market I'm starting at my local food bank . IT HAS TO HAPPEN !!!

 If anyone has any advice or good contacts please let me know . I feel like I've called about 20 people about this issue .  I maybe want to reach someone who has started a community garden before ; I think that would be most helpful .

BTW : The owner doesn't live here and wants to go home but is giving me a chance to sort things out .  Time is a factor!

Hey Gardeners!

I just wanted to give you all a heads up to save your seeds from this season's bounty!  In October we are going to be getting together for a SEED SWAP.  We will discuss different techniques for seed saving.

If you have any expertise in this please send me a message.

As soon as we have a date and time for this event I will post it to the calendar and the Meetup site. 

- Katrina

 

SCA is organizing a community service day in Hazelwood to work with the Hazelwood Urban Gardens, the Permaculture Food Forest, and rain barrel installation. 

Breakfast at 8:30am, volunteer with fun people from 9am-Noon, lunch provided at Noon.

Meet at Lewis Playground, 2nd Ave, near the Hazelwood YMCA.

 

RSVP to greencities@thesca.org or call 412.325.1851 x61

Hey, everyone!

Throughout the month of August, the Black and Gold City Goes Green wants to show how eating a local, organic, vegetarian diet saves heat-trapping emissions.

This month, we encourage Pittsburghers to have at least one meatless day per week (green action), shop locally (greener action), and buy organic (greenest action!). By reporting your greenhouse gas saving action this month at www.TheBlackandGoldCityGoesGreen.com, you can see how much you're saving and how the rest of the area is doing. Also, by reporting July, August, or September's actions, you're in the drawing for an awesome gift basket.

So keep eating those greens, and see how it's helping to make Pittsburgh even greener!

Lauryn Stalter- The Black and Gold City Goes Green

This is a cool project that I thought the PGE community might like to know about.  Check out their trailer.

http://www.handsthatfeed.com/

Hey Everybody!

This survey will give you a chance to give your input  about what you would like to see done with our open/green spaces in Pittsburgh and there are some questions about how you would like to see bicycling access improved! :)  This is a great chance to let the City know we are excited about urban agriculture.

It is open until 8/31.   Click on Openspace Adult Survey, and if you have children there is one for youth too.

http://exchange.planpgh.com/portal

 

Hi Pittsburgh Garden Experimenters!

We're new here :) The Black and Gold City Goes Green was established to get the Pittsburgh community involved in three greenhouse gas saving actions every month.

This month we want every yinzer in the area to recycle everything they can, compost at home, and opt for cloth over disposable napkins and hand towels. Our site (www.theblackandgoldcitygoesgreen.com) is how we track how much greenhouse gas is saved on the way to our 5 million pound goal.

Since many of you guys probably already do these actions already, we'd love for you to check out the website and let family and friends in on the campaign. We're also looking to work with community groups, so we'd love to hear from you if you're interested!

Lauryn Stalter -The Black and Gold City Goes Green Campaign

Scholarship applications are available for the permaculture design certificate course at Wild Meadows Farm in Bedford County, PA. We are 2 hours southeast of Pittsburgh.

The scholarship funds are provided by CHEARS, (Chesapeake, Education, Arts, and Research Society) based in Greenbelt, MD.

For further info, click on the link above!

This is a cool opportunity if anyone is going to be in the NYC area on July 31st.  The place where this workshop is going to be held is the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture.  It's a beautiful place about 30 miles north of NYC.  I worked at their Farm Day Camp last summer.  It's well worth a visit, and the farmers and apprentices there are great. 

Just wanted to share!

Best,

Katrina

 

Cultivating and Marketing Herbs and Edible Flowers
Summer workshop for farmers

Saturday 7/31 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM $15
A workshop especially for new and transitioning farmers who want to grow herbs and edible flowers for culinary, medicinal, and tisane uses. Join Stone Barns growers Shannon Algiere and Laura Perkins, farm apprentices Olivia Kirby and Samantha Ross, and herbalist Clare Pierson, for an informative morning covering propagation, companion plantings, soils, plant sales, harvesting, processing, record keeping, marketing, foraging and weed identification. Instructors will also cover restaurant and market sales, and the educational components of herbs on the farm.

This workshop will combine classroom time and a farm tour, so please bring your farmy footwear.

To register, call or email Nena Johnson (914 366 6200 x112/nenaj@stonebarnscenter.org)


--
Nena Johnson
Public Programs Director
Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture
630 Bedford Road
Pocantico Hills, NY 10591
Tel: 914-366-6200 x112
Fax: 914-366-7905
www.stonebarnscenter.org
*in the office Wednesdays – Sundays

Are there any fig growers in Pittsburgh? I have been growing Brown Turkey figs for the past few years, and last year I started a Black Mission Fig. Most of my figs are in pots that I bring inside over the winter, but last year I started some Brown Turkey figs outside. I buried one over the winter, and it is doing fine no, no winter damage at all. The two I left out died down to the ground, but they have come back this year. One of them even has two figs on it already! The ones in pots look good, but they do not have a lot of figs on them yet. 

If anyone else is raising figs, I would be interested in sharing notes and practices.

Register Now-Partial Scholarships Available

Join us for a 10-day intensive of permaculture design and practice!  This course is intended to give you a foundation in the concepts of permaculture and will include guiding you in your own design project and set you on your way to a permaculture apprenticeship. The dates of the course are August 6-15, 2010.

COURSE OBJECTIVES

• Learn permaculture design tools & skills
• Acquire practical skills to integrate into your life
• Inspire a movement towards an ecological paradigm and stewardship for the land

TOPICS TO BE COVERED

Observation & Ecological Design

Edible Forest Gardens

Water Harvesting

Natural Building

Site Analysis & Assessment

Biointensive Gardening

Design Process Models

Compost & Soils

and more!

PRIMARY TEACHER

Darrell E. Frey of Three Sisters Permaculture Design, is a sustainable design consultant with a focus on sustainable community development. He is also co-owner and manager of Three Sisters Farm, a certified organic market garden farm with a large bioshelter (ecologically managed solar greenhouse). Mr. Frey’s background includes 22 years of commercial market gardening, 25 years teaching of sustainable design and consultation on sustainable systems application. Work experience and research includes ecological landscaping, organic farm design and management, sustainable energy systems, community food systems with an emphasis on diet and health, natural and green building, environmental education, GIS mapping and business planning.

Other work experience includes 18 years as an MR direct care worker, teaching gardening and landscaping to at-risk youth, managing farm interns and lecturing to groups of all ages. Mr. Frey has completed a BA in Sustainable Community Development at Prescott College April 3,  2006.

CO-TEACHERS

Joel Cahalan is a certified permaculture teacher and aspiring biointensive gardener whose mentors include Dave Jacke and John Jeavons .  He manages the production aspects of Wild Meadows Farm and in a former life co-founded and helped manage a  successful worker cooperative (thehubbikecoop.org).  He dreams of a future in which all species are respected and valued and humans live in harmony with their home planet.  Other interests include all things related to bicycles, anarchism and nature.

Kim Walsh volunteered at the East Whittier community gardens in Minneapolis, Minnesota for four years and received her permaculture design course certificate in 2008. She co-founded the Wild Meadows Farm business in 2009 with Joel and the farm is certified by Pennsylvania Certified Organic . She serves as the Executive Director of Chesapeake Education, Arts, and Research Society (CHEARS), a 501(c)3 non-profit organization based in Greenbelt, Maryland and assists with the numerous volunteer driven projects that integrate the arts, education, and research in their environmental stewardship within the Chesapeake Watershed. Kim is also working on her Masters’ Degree with Gaia University with a pathway in Integrated Ecological and Social Design for Sustainable Agriculture.

REGISTER NOW

The cost for the course is a sliding scale fee of $1200-$1400, which includes lodging in an 1850’s rustic farmhouse, vegan/vegetarian cuisine, and instruction. Work trade is available and negotiable. Discounted fees are available for Bedford, Fulton, and Blair County residents of PA and Garrett County residents of MD.

RECOMMENDED READINGS BEFORE THE COURSE

Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability-David Holmgren

Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture-Toby Hemenway

OTHER READING RESOURCES

PERMACULTURE: A Designer’s Manual-Bill Mollison

EDIBLE FOREST GARDENS: Ecological Vision and Theory for Temperate Climate Permaculture-Dave Jacke with Eric Toensmeier

LOCATION

Wild Meadows Farm ¦ 456 Smith Road ¦ Schellsburg, PA 15559

SCHEDULE

Plan to arrive by 5:00 PM on Thursday evening to share a meal with the other participants and to get acquainted with the instructors. We will be starting at 8:00 AM on Friday morning and ending the workshop on Sunday by 4:00 PM.

For further questions, contact Kim Walsh at info(at)wildmeadowsfarm.com or call at 814-839-4962.

A collaboration of Three Sisters Permaculture Design, Wild Meadows Farm, and Chesapeake Education, Arts, and Research Society (CHEARS)

Hey PGE Community! 

I have two exciting opportunities for you!  How does getting into the Pittsburgh Blues Festival for free sound?!  First of all, PGE is going to have a booth and we will need one volunteer to help us man the table for about 4 1/2 hours on Saturday, July 24th from 1:30-6:00 pm. 

If you are interested in this opportunity please contact me, Katrina, at kmb6011@ag.psu.edu, or you can message me through this site.

Your second option for volunteering is below.

The 2010 Pittsburgh Blues Festival is reducing its waste and emissions, as well as highlighting the many green initiatives occurring in the Pittsburgh region! 

Read below to see how you can get into the festival for FREE!

The Pittsburgh Blues Festival is the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s largest annual event, raising more than $1 million to fight hunger over its fifteen years.  Join the Student Conservation Association’s Green Cities Corps and the Food Bank for three days of music and green at the Festival!  

Where:  Hartwood Acres, Pittsburgh, PA   /    Date:  Friday, July 23, 5:30 - 10:00 pm, Saturday and Sunday, July 24-25, 1:30 - 10:00 pm.

We’ll need over 100 volunteers to oversee the recycling and composting bins throughout the weekend. We want to make sure that the Festival attendees are not only putting their waste in the correct bins, but that they are also becoming educated on the matter. *Volunteers that pick up a shift will get into the Festival for FREE that day and receive a FREE Blues Festival Volunteer T-shirt. Volunteers will also get FREE food and drink under the volunteer tent, and get $5 FREE Blues Bucks to use at GPCFB vendors.

Click HERE to sign up for any of the following shifts:

·         July 23: 12pm – 4pm (set-up); 3:30pm – 7:30pm or 7pm – 10:30pm

·         July 24: 12:30pm – 4:30; 4pm – 8pm; or 7:30pm – 10:30pm

·         July 25:  12:30pm – 4:30; 4pm – 8pm; or 7:30pm – 10:30pm

Performers at the Festival include Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band, Eric Burdon & The Animals, Kenny Wayne Shephard, among many others.

Besides great music, all attendees can enjoy:

·         Demonstrations of the many sustainable initiatives currently being practiced in the Pittsburgh area 

·         Environmental organizations, agencies, and green businesses promoting sustainable practices under the PGH Sustainable Initiative tent

·         Raffles for awesome eco-prizes

·         FREE reusable eco-bags for the first 500 attendees to sign-up for the Black & Gold City Goes Green campaign under the tent

·         Environmental eco-art – submit your own or browse other displayed pieces. We would love to have your eco art - big and small - make an environmental statement at the event! Please email Green Cities if you are interested (greencities@thesca.org)

 

Follow us on our Facebook page, SCA: 2010 Green and Blues Festival,  to stay updated on the specific eco prizes that we'll be giving away, the art work that is being submitted, and the different types of sustainable practices we are hoping to embed into the Festival.

For more information, visit the Pittsburgh Blues Festival website, for the lineup and ticket information.

 

(If the volunteer sign up links above are not working for you, here is the full link; thank you!:  http://www.thesca.org/events/pittsburgh-blues-festival)

Please contact Lori Gaido, SCA Program Manager, if you are interested in tabling at this event. lgaido@thesca.org 412-325-1851 x27

 

Hey there gardeners,

 

 I hope everyone’s growing season is going fantastic! If you find yourself with excess produce that is going to waist please keep the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank in mind and help feed the hungry with your surplus of produce.

 

The Food Bank is participating in Plant a Row for the Hungry (PAR), a public service campaign of the Garden Writers Association of America (GWAA). PAR is a way for gardeners to help the community and fight hunger. Gardeners can grow extra specifically for the program or they may collect excess produce to donate. The Food Bank will connect the gardener to a local pantry or soup kitchen so they may drop off their donation at their convenience, as well as receipts. The gardener is to fill out the receipts with their name, the date, the agency they have dropped off to and the pounds that are being donated (this can be estimated), and mail or fax the receipts back to the Food Bank. The food bank will keep track of the pounds donated in order to measure the success of the program.

 

A gardener may also check out www.AmpleHarvest.org, a website that connects gardeners to food pantries near them. It is very user friendly for both the gardener and the food pantry. All the food pantry needs to do is register on the website, the gardeners can then enter their address and or zip code and the closest pantry to them will be shown via map and listing. There are currently 2,155 food pantries listed on AmpleHarvest.org nation wide.

 

If there are no pantries listed near you the Food Bank is happy to help! If you choose to find a pantry through AmpleHarvest.org, please still contact the Food Bank for receipts in order to participate in the program. 

 

For more information on how to be involved please contact Michelle Herrle at the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank mherrle@gpcfb.org  412-460-3663 X. 214   

I read yesterday that trapping and dropping off a raccoon although seemingly humane is actually a bad thing.

Check out this interesting website:  Center for Human-Wildlife Conflict Resolution

The raccoon is one of the most abundant urban animals.  If you trap and move it, it will most likely be taking the spot of another rural raccoon, meanwhile the spot in your backyard will fill with another raccoon. It could also transfer an urban disease to the rural population.

The best way to deal is not to trap or kill, but to make your area less attractive to raccoons.  Coop your chickens and fence in your compost areas well if raccoons are a problem.

Has anyone tried coyote urine?

Any other ideas?

OK this is a personal rant about my thoughts on lawns and our organized destruction of the urban/suburban environment.  Please comment with your thoughts on lawns.

First I'll start with some reasons for and the place of lawns but then follow with discussion on why I think lawns are idiotic, and we should get rid of them in favor of biodiversity and productive landscapes.

Don't get me wrong.  Lawns have their place:  golf fairways, football, rugby and parks all are great places for lawns.  However outside of sports and recreational areas, lawns are a threat to our health and wealth, literally. Here are some reasons against lawns:  lawns waste money,  lawns waste time, lawn care pollutes.

We spend a ton of money on lawns.  Even in my tiny suburb of Pittsburgh, there isn't a sunny day that doesn't humm with the sound of my tax dollars as well as my neighbors' hard earned income burned in a lawnmower, leafblower, chainsaw, hedgetrimmer or some other high-powered weapon of lawn destruction.  Go out to the country and it's the same thing. Only out there people have tractors for lawnmowers and spend thousands of dollars on mowing acres of lawn.  We are facing $5 / gallon gasoline by the end of 2011, and run-away climate change. Is it only me that wonders why we must attack our surroundings with machines?  Are we really that stressed that we have to take it out violently on our front yards?

On one hand, all of this money spent is paying for a market of "landscapers"  who seem to spend every waking minute burning some form of fossil fuels.  These are jobs, and this is a rough economy I'm sure, but every one of these jobs and more could be put into orchards, coppice forests, pollinator gardens and bee boxes, rain barrel installations, and many more.  All of these jobs would produce a income producing product without burning fossil fuels.  Hmmm.

Speaking of that humming of lawn destruction.  Ever wonder how much time people spend in their lawns dumping poisons, attacking nature with gas engines, and otherwise disturbing the order of things?  If everyone quit mowing their lawns and took a break or a nap, maybe we could get along better...Just a suggestion.  How many days did you lose to lawn work last season?  Weren't they the best days of the year to be inhaling gas fumes and tearing apart living tissue?

All of the "lawn care" chemicals, fertilizers, and fungicides leave our soil in pretty rough shape.  With no biology left, and no roots to hold it, increasing runoff water starts to pollute the surrounding areas without natural cleaning.  The lack of retention causes flash floods, and in Pittsburgh the soil starts slipping downhill.  This erosion and water pollution along with air pollution of small engines, and sound corrupting our peace make it hard to appreciate the quiet and deliberate design of natural forest systems.

But at least you get to look at short, parched, sunburned grass leaves.  That's beauty, right?.   Then we spend money on drinking water to resusitate the poorly rooted plants.  We are literally pouring recently chemically polluted drinking water into the storm drains and watersheds to keep our lawns alive when they thoroughly want to die.   Suburbanites grow lawns in the desert too.  Why?

Alternatively: trees, perennial herbs, rocks, and swales would passively regulate the water and temperature with no external inputs.  In this sense, spreading lawns across America is actually helping contribute to our loss of climate control. 

"Lawn's looking good today neighbor. You have conquered your soil to the edge of death and starvation.  You have tossed the life of topsoil to the wind while managing to burn through excessive amounts of gas and drinking water.  Then you poured poison on it.  Well done.  Take that nature."            <3 Jeff

OK so what is this all for?  I've heard two suggestions:

One was that we hold this aesthetic from our days from the African Savanna where trees and low grass happen naturally.  Until an elephant knocks the tree down in favor of forage grass.  Grasslands only occur naturally where there is disturbance, due to animals, fire, or lawnmower abuse.  In our geographic location, the natural succession would be to forest, so cut the lawn we must to keep the aesthetic of a savanna with large foraging animals. 

The second suggestion was that a lawn is a status symbol from the days when you would have had a huge sheep flock to forage a large lawn.  Large lawns mean that you are wealthy.  I think this also has some merit because considering how wasteful lawns and suburbs are, it fits right in with the American plan for "conspicuous consumption" as a way of demonstrating wealth.

Bottom line:  lawns are the fashion right now.  The lawn economy is based in a fashion that was sold to us.  Like the economy that it built, lawn fashion is also phantom and volitile.  For any reasons, if it is a question of aesthetic, the predominant belief semas to be that a large short lawn is a good, beautiful thing. 

This is a question of fashion, but I believe we can change it.  We must help create a positive vision of a life without lawns:  a life with cleaner water & air, quieter streets, healthier ecosystems, and productive jobs.  By standing out and turning each of our lawns into a backyard oasis for wildlife, food production, herbs, forest farming or any other type of natural landscape, we will continue the trend towards the tipping point where people might get it.

If anyone wants any ideas on what to do besides lawns, send me a message.  Be safe out there.

End of Rant. Thanks :)

Last night began the planting of the straw bales. As I began planting, I saw things growing that I did not plant -- clusters of dark mushrooms. Being a budding mycologist, I became distracted from the planting and focused on identifying the mushrooms. Personally, I use http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/. When that fails, I break out my book Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora. One of these days, I will hit paydirt and find a huge bunch of tasty edibles. This is not that day.

 

These mushrooms had a specific property that made them relatively simple to identify -- they ooze black ink. As I handled several of these mushrooms, you can imagine what my fingers look like right now. These little guys are Coprinopsis atramentaria or Common Ink Cap mushrooms. Unfortunately, although edible, they are not desirable if you consume alcohol. I love a good IPA, and probably will not sacrifice beer for 5 days (suggested to be safe) to eat a mushroom that may or may not be tasty.

After identifying the mushrooms, I had to see what, if any, effect they may have on the bales and my plants. GOOGLE! After pouring through web sites, I think it is safe to say that mushrooms can only help the growing process.