Ideas to Grow More & Waste Less Food By the time you read this, much of the adrenaline and enthusiasm about gardening may have worn off since the arrival of seed catalogs in January. Your vegetable garden may have grown profusely, producing stunning spring and early-summer food. Or, you may have planted your plants too early, only to find them to have flopped over or dried out. While many gardening successes are serendipitous, most are a result of planning. In this article, we’ll tackle how an ounce of planning can produce more and healthier vegetable plants and how you can reduce waste and prevent diseases. Most of the plants in…
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Induction Stoves
Say Bye Bye to Gas in the Kitchen Induction stoves allow consumers to happily leave behind fossil fuels in the kitchen. Plus, they cook food faster than other types of stoves, adjust heat instantaneously, offer precise temperature control, and are incredibly safe (they only work when a magnetic pan is placed on top of them, so no more accidentally leaving the burner on). Best of all, they are powered by clean electricity. Like so many technologies in the electrified home of the future, induction stoves are exciting newcomers on the scene because they change the rules of the game. They eliminate one more gas industry argument for why we need…
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“Barn Raising” Community Cuts the Cost of Solar
Since 2016, Give Solar has organized crowdfunding campaigns and five solar barn raisings which have added 291.4 kilowatts to the local grid. Taking a page from the Amish and Mennonites’ playbook, a Harrisonburg, Virginia non-profit adapted the community barn-raising tradition to the solar energy arena. On November 5, 2016, a group of volunteer members of the community came together to support the non-profit Vine and Fig by installing solar panels (63 kW) on the roof of the Gift & Thrift store. The store benefits the worldwide relief and development efforts of the Mennonite Central Committee. The success of this first solar barn-raising made it clear that this idea has wings.…
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The Green Burial
Green burial is a way of caring for the dead with the minimal environmental impact that aids in the conservation of natural resources, reduction of carbon emissions, protection of worker health, and the restoration and/or preservation of habitat. The standard conventional funeral, complete with embalming and burial in a lawn cemetery, is fraught with health hazards. In addition, it requires the permanent installation of non-biodegradable vaults around non-biodegradable caskets. Embalmers have an eight times higher risk of contracting blood diseases such as leukemia, and three times higher risk of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), while groundskeepers are more than twice as likely to develop Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD); both are…
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Light Pollution Affects Migratory Birds
When investigators in the UK recorded the calls of migratory thrushes at night, they found that call rates were up to five times higher over the brightest urban areas compared with darker villages. The findings, which are published in Ibis-International Journal of Avian Science, provide support to previous and ongoing research indicating that artificial light at night affects migratory birds. “We harnessed the respective strengths of citizen science, passive acoustic monitoring, and machine learning to gather evidence of the impact of artificial light at night on migratory birds,” said corresponding author Simon Gillings, Ph.D., of The British Trust for Ornithology. “Finding that even modest urban areas without high-rise buildings can influence migration…
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Cordless Electric Yard Tools
About 6 years ago, we ran an article on switching your gasoline-powered lawn and garden tools to all battery-electric versions, and since then, there have been a lot of changes—time for an update. The first change is in the number of makes and models available today. A Google search for electric yard tools will bring up more than 30 brands, and each brand can have multiple types of tools (lawnmowers, edgers, leaf blowers, etc.), as well as a selection of models for many of the different tools. For instance, walk-behind lawn mowers are available in 14-inch cut to 25-inch cut and as either push or self-propelled. This range of choices…
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Strong Organic and Non-GMO Sales are “Silver Lining to Catastrophic Dark Clouds” of Pandemic
Sales of both organic and non-GMO products have accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Errol Schweizer, advisor to the natural food industry and board member of the Non-GMO Project Speaking at the Organic & Non-GMO Forum, Schweizer quoted data from market research firm SPINS, showing that in October 2020, sales of organic products had increased by 13.1% and that sales of non-GMO products were up by 13% over the previous year. These numbers are significant because organic sales had grown by just 3.1% and non-GMO by 0.5% a year earlier. “These are the highest numbers (for organic and non-GMO) that I’ve seen by SPINS in years,” said Schweizer, who…
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Gratitude
What will you remember most about this last year in which all of us were faced with a pandemic that abruptly put a halt to “normal” everyday life? I have to admit that it was pretty unnerving at the beginning when it was all an altered reality. Simple activities such as going to the grocery store made us anxious, and we rushed to get our food and leave as quickly as possible, and then we washed the food when we got home. It was stressful, no doubt about it. My husband and I both felt such gratitude that we were retired and not having to figure out work, educating children,…
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Invest in the Future:
When is the Best Time to Plant a Tree? As I sit in my recliner, looking out at our yard through rain-streaked windows, I am overcome with pride and a wonderful sense of accomplishment at what I see. What was an abandoned field 18 years ago, today has raised beds for vegetables, four different types of berry bushes, plus a wide variety of other flowers and plants that are colorful and beneficial to wildlife. But it’s the trees that we have planted over the last 18 years that amaze me the most. They are an eclectic group of paulownia, ash, apple, plum, fig, locust, cedar, maple, and mimosa trees, all…
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Northwest VEG Scavenger Hunt
Don’t miss the Rock n’ Revelry on August 14th Tis the season for an outdoor scavenger hunt! On Saturday, August 14th, traverse your favorite part of Portland in search of 50+ painted rocks. When you find a treasure, flip over the rock to scan the QR code and learn from what local shop or restaurant you’ve won a small goodie. Ranging from a free appetizer to a $5 gift card to fun bumper stickers, all prizes are from your favorite veg-friendly places around town. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to join in the fun. This event is sponsored by Northwest VEG, and we would love your help jazzing up our…
