Grandpa and Great Uncle

Having had no father to speak of growing up, Father’s Day was something I never worried about as a kid. No ugly ties for me to buy. Instead I watched as my mom and her sisters and brothers came to honor my grandpa with small gifts and gestures - hard to find candy, favorite pipe tobacco. I lived in a multi-generational household, which in the 1960s was falling victim of urban sprawl.  Waxing nostalgic?  Likely! Don’t get me wrong, when I was a kid living with your grandparents was NOT cool. The quintessential generation gap was amplified  in every cultural aspect from music (Lawrence Welk vs Rolling Stones) to hair style (crew cut versus ‘fro).  Our desires for privacy and autonomy fueled the mass migration from cities that resulted in cookie cutter housing developments with nuclear families.  Since the 1960s, living space per person has expanded dramatically. Kids sharing a bedroom – are you joking?

Maybe this personal space has lead to greater peace and harmony and less conflict but perhaps we have lost someting as well like our ability to get along with diverse populations – something that is identified as a huge challenge as the workforce expands when people work longer and retire later <multi-generational workforce>. While we have been forced (kicking and screaming) to adjust to a “new (recession) normal”, with lots of competition and scarce resources, could we have benefitted from lessons that skip a generation?

My grandparents were forever impacted by the Great Depression that left them saving twine, using every scrap of fabric, and every ounce of food. We did not live on credit. We composted, recycled cans, re-used glass jars, even nails and handed down “perfectly good” clothes.  We only had one car and rode our bikes everywhere as transportation.  While this perspective was born of necessity and the mantra that waste was a sin, it was also fundamentally very sustainable.  

On Father’s Day I always think about my grandpa. My grandpa taught us all to swim and urged us to ride our bikes to get places.  What I think about to day is how he connected us with the food on our table.  He farmed our back lot and we picked beetles off his roses, rocks out of the fields, and weeds out of the orchard in addition to harvesting food.  We saw tomatoes, bittermelon, bok choy, peanuts!, peppers and peas go from the garden to our table. 

A conference I attended this week talked about the resurgence of multi-generational households, for a variety of reasons.  The value of that extended history edcuation is priceless.  I didn’t at the time, but I now treasure having have had the influence of my grandparents.

Gray Water The Garden (source: http://houseandgardenningaddicts.wordpress.com)

If you try to live sustainably, you probably already think about ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and ways to save water.  But did you know that if you save water, you are reducing greenhouse gas emissions, too? Transport and use of water is responsible for the largest single expenditure of electrical energy in California, accounting for 19% of all electricity consumed, 30% of non-power plant-related natural gas use, and 88 million gallons of diesel burned every year. There are many ways to reduce water usage at your home, including using low-flow toilets and showerheads.  You can also capture water that has not been contaminated by chemical or biological wastes for use in irrigation – this water is called gray water.  Installing a gray water system at your own home is easy, and can be done for the cost of a bucket.

My neighbor and I both capture the rinse water from our washing machines and use it to water our gardens.  My washer drains to a sink, and his drains to a pipe in the wall, the photos below the jump show how we do it.

If your washer drains to a sink, use a bucket to catch the rinse water.

Mitzi inspects the set-up.

Most of the suds get washed out by clean rinse water.

Use a biodegradable detergent with NO BLEACH.

If your washer doesn’t drain to a sink, move the drain hose to a bucket before the rinse cycle drains.

Make sure the bucket is big enough to hold all of the rinse water!

Mitzi supervises watering the garden.

Most plants don’t mind the gray water at all!

Green Cut Tree

More onerous than the naughty/nice debate, Green Santa (not the Grinch) has long debated “artifical versus real” for the tree to hold our ornaments and stand guard over our presents.  The verdict is in and much to my grinchy (lazy mom) chagrin the answer is — Go Green with a REAL tree.  As reported in the Seattle Times and NPR the evergreen is the “real” green.  In terms of

• Renewable — yes ask any tree farmer and eventually ends up as compost
• Energy consumption – locally grown so very little transport costs
• Economic – supports a local economy (if you live in Cascadia)
• Climate – tree farms are filtering air and toxins
• Stewardship – the land is preserved as ag within or very near urban communities

Pink shiny and artificial tree

it is a green no-brainer. And that nasty artificial tree – pink,  shiny, pre-lit that comes from overseas — it eventually ends up somewhere in a land fill.  So when my son demands a real tree, from the u-cut place 5 miles away that comes with a free cup of hot cocoa, a candy cane and a tractor ride…I gotta say ho ho ho.

Merry Christmas Charlie Brown!

“Businesses are the source of 75 percent of all landfill waste. Studies show that food scraps, food-soiled paper and yard trimmings make up nearly a third of that total. These are rich materials for compost. . . Businesses in the City of Portland can contract with their garbage and recycling company to participate in composting. Garbage and recycling companies collect the food scraps and deliver them to a composting facility where food scraps go through a natural process and are transformed into compost in two months.”

Source: Washington State Department of Ecology

Are there other ways that we can make our offices more sustainable and environmentally friendly?

Creating local, community gardens is one great way to give more power back to people who have very little power. This also helps to create a sense of community. Growing Gardens in Portland is one of these great non-profits that focuses on this topic.

Another issue is general beautification. How does constant graffitti and grey walls affect the people who live in a city? A recent project is Let’s Colour, which is coloring poorer neighborhoods around the world. What a great idea – adding color to previously grey neighborhoods.

Portland Farmer's Market

Not only does buying close to home help support your local economy and family owned farms (which is critical to the preservation of land for the cultivation of food and wildlife), but it also reduces the amount of energy spent on transporting food from long distances. This has recently been called a “local diet” or becoming a “locavore” – but it used to be called normal before transportation costs became low enough to truck or fly food all over the world. According  to Thomas Starrs’ 2005 article from SustainableBusiness.com, food in US grocery stores travel an average of 1,500 miles. Some foods are even worse than that: grapes grown in Chile, shipped to California, then trucked to Iowa travel over 4,200 miles.

Summer strawberries for jam

So think about ways to cut your food’s carbon footprint, by purchasing closer to home. And even better, preserve those tasty summer and fall foods for winter – check with your local farmer’s market for classes or your county’s food extension course.

Urban farms, apple harvesting. From a 2009 OPB article.

A recent article in EnzymePDX talks about the recent surge in urban foraging, notably the success of programs such as the Portland Fruit Tree Project, where you can register to donate the fruit from your trees to local food banks and low-income indivduals (and you don’t have to clean up all that fruit off your lawn!). There is also a great article from OPB about the foundation of some of these projects.

So maybe I should work up the courage to ask my neighbor for a few of those extra magnolia buds (more likely) or some of those strawberries (less likely).

Chicago City Hall Roof Garden from Planetizen

While perusing the Washington Post website today, I found an interesting article about using excess heat from manufacturing processes to grow vegetables in rooftop greenhouses. The article mentions a company that forges car parts and hand tools near Detroit that has already planted and harvested its first crop. Rooftop gardening is different than well-known green roofs, but the benefits are very similar: reduced building energy consumption, reduced stormwater runoff, and pollutant filtration. However, the rooftop gardens add another benefit – fresh vegetables and fruits. I like the idea of going and picking my salad for lunch from the roof of my building – healthy and innovative!

PS Image is not to suggest that there is a lot of hot air at the Chicago City Hall…

Thanks to Terra Lingley from CH2M HILL in Portland

Treehuggers Tool Library Image

Problem: West Seattle neighborhoods include lots of passionate urban gardeners yet many urban neighborhoods don’t come with the big toolsheds.  

Answer: The Tool Library!  Following many urban communities like Portland, OR , Berkeley, CA and West Philly, PA, West Seattle is opening a tool lending library on June 12th!  Populated with mostly donated items, houshold and garden tools are available for temporary use at the unbeatable price of pay-what-you-can.   According to Sustainable West Seattle more than just being a convenience the West Seattle tool lending library is intended to encourage residents to engage in sustainable practices including growing foods and participating in park restoration projects.  The tool library is sponsored by Sustainable West Seattle using a grant from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods.  It is located in the north end of South Seattle Communty College.

Frederick Wallace (left) and Leonard Brightmon of Central City Concern took part last fall in a volunteer work crew that weeds Lair Hill Park. Efforts to go pesticide-free at other Portland parks, however, have suffered from a lack of volunteers.

Most people visit parks to play with their children or dogs. Some like the quiet and chance for reflection closer to nature. But what if the park is using pesticides to control bugs or weeds? Does that affect the enjoyment you have for a park?

Several parks in Portland and other cities have been testing pesticide-free alternatives. Many of these efforts rely on volunteer work to weed and maintain the sites; and the word isn’t getting out to the residents that they need to volunteer. The program in Portland is at risk of closing down. Not only will that affect the environment, but also the opportunities to work and volunteer for park maintenence, which can be as equally important (see Central City Concern for more information about teaching job training skills through park clean up).