"...the greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone ( Read more... )

I had a pleasant local business experience today, in trying to complete a trellising project for the Scarlet Runner beans in our little community garden plot.  I stopped by Ballard Hardware in search of the right size of "egg staples," those horseshoe-shaped staples (nails), but they were sold out and referred me to another local business, Limback ( Read more... )

This is pretty cool, nice to see Sustainable Ballard mentioned as an inspiration, or at least an influence on this happy event

Did you hear about the bank where they grow vegetables?

By Dean Wong, Ballard News-Tribune

Wednesday, June 18, 2008
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I'm delighting my ears with a collection of Yo-Yo Ma's recordings, and treating my tastebuds to rice cakes dressed with peanut butter, honey and wonderful homemade raspberry jam that Jenny gave to me (thanks, Jenny!)

Focusing all awareness on the sweetness of the honey, a huckleberry variety harvested nearby Mt. Rainier, I am filled with such ( Read more... )

"There are hundreds of thousands of stems linking us to everything in the cosmos, supporting us and making it possible for us to be.  Do you SEE the link between you and me?  If you are not THERE, I am not HERE."

--Thich Nhat Hanh

(gleaned from a wall calendar featuring the simple wisdom of Thich Nhat Hahn)

I made the following recipe last night and it is so quick, and simple.  The better the ingredients, the better it will taste.  I try my best to stay local, which is always the freshest, and supports the existence of valuable agriculture in my immediate area.  I'm happy to report that all the ingredients were very local, or at least from Cascadia.

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I've been really digging this gardening idea, a group of us creating a community garden at a landed neighbor's house....but so many of us are activists and we're all soooo busy.  (Yea, grassroots activism don't pay well (if at all), no matter how valuable it may be, so a lot of us are trying to manage many activities.)  It's quite the comedy to get ( Read more... )

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I'm starting to get excited about building a worm bin for composting kitchen scraps.  I currently recycle my food scraps via the City of Seattle yard waste program, but since I'm plotting a garden with neighbors (at a landed neighbor's house), I thought it would be better to turn my precious organic matter into compost for the garden.

A co-worker is ( Read more... )

Interesting, there seems to be a lot of energy around this idea out in part of the community of Ballard: a non-military, non-government sort of "victory garden" idea.  I have had trouble trying to reclaim the semantics of "victory garden" and exactly what it is we're "conquering" - you ain't gonna nurture the new symbols by invoking the old ones, I ( Read more... )