Rachel Grows Project

On a mildly related note, I'll be working on a personal project all this coming month, which I've dubbed "Rachel Grows." The goal is to get involved in urban agriculture in Vancouver, to create connections between the existing groups. I'll be documenting the project with a blog.

So, I've got an excellent reason to do my follow-up visit at the city farmer teaching garden, and check out their composting toilet. (As well as the excellent resource of composting techniques, growing how-tos etc.) Anyway, I'll be going this Friday, so if anyone wants to come along please let me know. Also, if you think of anything else that might be relevant to both projects, let me know.

City Farmer, by accident

Lorea and I were walking back to a friend's house today, and we realized that we were passing the city farmer teaching garden, which I've been dying to go to for ages! We popped inside to check it out, and were delighted to find a variety of different composting formats and even the composting toilet which I've wanted to see. I'll go back tomorrow when they're open to check it out!

Food food food food

In the same vein as considering what resources your home demands (environmental, financial, investments of your time and energy,) we've also been thinking about the life cycle of our food products- whether we buy them from Safeway, local businesses or grow them ourselves. 

So it was very encouraging to see this article from the Times online, discussing the back and forth between Michelle Obama (who recently planted an organic garden at the white house) and big agribusiness in the States. It seems that those invested in agribusiness are wary of someone with so much influence advocating organic DIY gardening- but frankly, I think that they have little to fear.

The infrastructure for food in North America is still heavily dependent on factory farming, which in turn relies heavily on chemical processes which prop up the one-sided process. Whether permaculture is a viable alternative on a large scale is yet to be seen. 

Not to mention that (from Michael Pollan's book, The Omnivore's Dillemma) large scale organic farming resembles factory farming in many ways- and it remains to be seen if this can in fact be considered to be a significantly more environmentally balanced practice.

Meanwhile, if people start growing their own, it helps build up the food security of the place in which they live. I don't think that we're anywhere near the point where people would give up their banannas and mangoes, shipped in from elsewhere by middlemen. Agribusiness should untangle its' panties, there's a ways to go yet before the bottom will fall out of their market.

Greywater system

Jackie was kind enough to send me this video via facebook, and i thought it was worth sharing with everyone here.

There are a couple of really interesting things that come up in the video. The first is that the whole series focuses on "positive responses to peak oil and climate change," which I think is a really excellent attitute to have. Often, our response to any crisis is to point fingers, lay blame, and present mandates about what 'people' should do. I really respect groups that identify that there is (or may be) a problem, and who simply take initiative.

Trathen also mentioned that they are working as a network with other homes in the area, with the intent to make their homes more self reliant, and to create a model for other people in the future. This is exciting, because it is one of the key goals of our project, and is a great derivative of open source formats for development.

They mention a "graywater bible"- here's the author's website.

Hot stuff.