Don't Miss This Event Next Tuesday

“Eat Here Now–Growing Food in Denver”
A Panel on the Growth of Urban Agriculture

Come join a few “movers and shakers” in the local food movement, and explore answers to some of the following questions: What is Community Supported Agriculture, and how is it playing out within the city limits? How can we grow more healthy food locally and get it distributed in effective ways? How can we use gardening techniques that are affordable, sustainable and use less resources? And much, much more……..

Panelists include:
Andy Nowak – Slow Food Denver
Ellen Rosenthal – Living Earth Center
Lisa Rogers and Tom Sorenson – Feed Denver
Faatma Mahremanesh – Solarlivity
James Hale – Produce Denver
Debbie Dalrymple - Sense of Colorado
Jim Sincock – Rocky Mountain Grower’s Directory

WHEN: Tuesday, January 13 from 7-9 p.m.
WHERE: At the Mercury Café
2155 California St., Denver
COST: There is a $5 suggested donation.

Sponsored by:
REBUILDING COMMUNITY AND SELF-RELIANCE

Transition Denver is a group of local citizens who have joined the rapidly-growing, worldwide Transition Initiative Movement . Transition Initiatives empower communities from the grassroots level to squarely face the challenges of peak oil, climate change and financial instability and find ways to collectively and drastically reduce carbon emissions, significantly rebuild resilience and strengthen our local economies.

This event is one of a series of Transition Denver events called Transition Fridays. Contact Dana Miller at 303-300-3547 for details, or visit www.transitioncolorado.ning.com for information about this event or about Transition Denver, as well as the other Transition Initiatives springing up in Colorado and other cities around the United States.

Two Great Books to Read in the New Year

OK -- so you’ve received a slew of seed catalogs, ordered your seeds for 2009, and now what? It’s too early to plant -- even if you start seeds indoors. The days are getting longer – and in between bouts of snow and freezing temperatures, we’re seeing sunny, warm, glistening days that tease and tempt us with the prospect of spring.

What’s a gardener to do?

Here are two books that will serve as inspiration while winter plays itself out.

Food Not Lawns, How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden and Your Neighborhood into a Community
by H.C. Flores

Food Not Lawns is a great book to get you through the next few weeks. It’s a bit of a rant, written by activist and urban gardener H.C. Flores, but it’s also a comprehensive guide on how to start your own garden, whether you live in an apartment, in the ‘burbs, or in an inner city environment. According to Flores, “The average American lawn could produce several hundred pounds of food a year."

Flores is a certified permaculture designer, promoting a sustainable way of landscaping inspired by natural eco-systems. Food Not Lawns presents a nine-step plan to help readers “build fertile soil, raise their own food, promote biodiversity and increase natural habitat.” But it’s also more than that. As Flores says, “This book is about how to be healthier and more self-reliant, and thus improve the ecological integrity of the community you live in, through growing diverse organic gardens and sharing the surplus.”

Flores begins with a bit of her own history – growing up in suburban L.A. in the 1980s and evolving into a full time activist via Food Not Bombs. Ultimately, she joined with friends to start Food Not Lawns. The book advances her message by providing a “how-to” guide, with tips on finding garden space, securing water, improving the soil, and designing a garden paradise using sound ecological principles. Equally as important, it offers suggestions on how to use your garden as a catalyst to improve your own life and your community.

You can order Food Not Lawns through the link below:




This Organic Life: Confessions of a Suburban Homesteader
by Joan Dye Gussow

Another of my favorite books is This Organic Life by Joan Dye Gussow. She’s an icon in the local foods movement, having served as an overseer of the Chef’s Collaborative; as chair & professor emeritus (nutrition), Columbia University Teachers College; as director of the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation; and as an advisory board member, for the Center for Food Safety and Ecology Action.

This Organic Life chronicles her gardening experiences -- self described as “a decades-long journey to vegetal self sufficiency” -- which culminate in the purchase of a dilapidated Odd Fellows Hall on the banks of the Hudson River in Piedmont, NY. There, she and her husband set about to eat only what they grow. Gussow’s accounts of the "renovation" of the house and the creation of their gardens are heart warming and funny, seasoned with journal and letter extracts, fabulous recipes using garden fresh produce, and serious musings on what’s wrong with the traditional agricultural system. Gussow takes the philosophical task of eating locally and makes it intensely personal: challenging, entertaining, satisfying, flavorful and fun.

You can order This Organic Life via the link below.

Crisis = Change = Opportunity

Given the fallout in our global financial markets and a new administration in Washington, we have a small window of opportunity to advocate for meaningful change in our agricultural system.

Here are two ways you can make your wishes known to the the administration:

• If you would like to encourage President-elect Obama to choose sustainably minded Under Secretaries in the new USDA, please sign this grassroots petition from Food Democracy Now. This one is time sensitive, so act now!
• If you'd like to endorse a set of principles to create a national sustainable food and agriculture policy, check out Food Declaration.Org.

Pass these along to everyone you know. If we can garner a million signatures or more, folks in Washinston will have to sit up and take notice.

FeedDenver: Check This Out!

I recently met with two incredible entrepreneurs who are working to start an urban/vertical farm in Denver. You can visit their website at www.feeddenver.com. If you've never heard of vertical farms, you can take a YouTube video tour here.

Why build a vertical farm in the middle of the city? Here are some reasons to think about, compliments of vertical farms.org:

"By the year 2050, nearly 80% of the earth's population will reside in urban centers. Applying the most conservative estimates to current demographic trends, the human population will increase by about 3 billion people during the interim. An estimated 109 hectares of new land (about 20% more land than is represented by the country of Brazil) will be needed to grow enough food to feed them, if traditional farming practices continue as they are practiced today. At present, throughout the world, over 80% of the land that is suitable for raising crops is in use (sources: FAO and NASA). Historically, some 15% of that has been laid waste by poor management practices.

"The concept of indoor farming is not new, since hothouse production of tomatoes, a wide variety of herbs, and other produce has been in vogue for some time. What is new is the urgent need to scale up this technology to accommodate another 3 billion people. An entirely new approach to indoor farming must be invented, employing cutting edge technologies. The Vertical Farm must be efficient (cheap to construct and safe to operate). Vertical farms, many stories high, will be situated in the heart of the world's urban centers. If successfully implemented, they offer the promise of urban renewal, sustainable production of a safe and varied food supply (year-round crop production), and the eventual repair of ecosystems that have been sacrificed for horizontal farming."

Other advantages of vertical farms:

• Year-round crop production; 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending upon the crop (e.g., strawberries: 1 indoor acre = 30 outdoor acres)
• No weather-related crop failures due to droughts, floods, pests
• VF virtually eliminates agricultural runoff by recycling black water
• VF returns farmland to nature, restoring ecosystem functions and services
• VF greatly reduces the incidence of many infectious diseases that are acquired at the agricultural interface
• VF converts black and gray water into potable water by collecting the water of evapotranspiration
• VF adds energy back to the grid via methane generation from composting non-edibleparts of plants and animals
• VF dramatically reduces fossil fuel use (no tractors, plows, shipping.)
• VF converts abandoned urban properties into food production centers
• VF creates sustainable environments for urban centers
• VF creates new employment opportunities

It's exciting to see this idea taking root in our city. The thing that most appeals to me is the opportunity to build and strenghten local communities around food production -- the one absolutely recession-proof industry.

FeedDenver has linked up with Transitions Denver and SPROUT (Sustainable People Reaching Out for Urban Transformation) to join energies with others working toward similar urban agricultural goals. Cirrently, they are evaluating sites, gathering numbers, networking with neighbors, professionals, and civic leaders. They are also seeking assistance with financial projections (especially Market Farm or CSA numbers), design/architecture/concept drawings, and input from an experienced permaculturist/bio-intensivist/hydro-aquaponicist.

If you are interested in getting involved in this project, email them at info@feeddenver.com

Celebrate the Winter Solstice

What gardener does not celebrate the coming and passing of the winter solstice?

In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, I offer the following -- in celebration and thanksgiving.

The Shortest Day
by Susan Cooper

"So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.

They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,

And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - Listen!!

All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,

And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!!"

Wishing you all the blessings of the season.....and longer, warmer days as we go forward.