Sweet Orange

Do you like the idea of having fresh vegetables that you can pick right outside your door but don’t feel you have the time to do the planting? Well, if that is the case, Harvest to Home has an answer for you. They will do the planting for you.

Of course, if you did the planting yourself, it would be cheaper. But if your time is more of the deciding factor, the services that Harvest to Home offer provide an answer. They will deliver and install either boxes that can be placed in your yard (or on a balcony) or raised-bed vegetable gardens.

If you choose the vegetable-box option, you will pick from their list which vegetable boxes you want delivered. If you choose the raised-bed option, then you will be able to work with the company to create a custom vegetable garden. For an additional charge, one-time or on-going maintenance is available. In addition, you can buy or rent accessory equipment.

Harvest to Home delivers to Orange and Los Angeles counties as well as Arizona. To learn more about the services provided, watch the Harvest to Home videos.

So Harvest to Home offers an option for getting the health benefits that fresh-picked, organic produce can provide you and your family. It’s a matter of your time or your money. Which would you choose?

The Orange County Interfaith Coalition for the Environment (OCICE) in partnership with California Interfaith Power & Light (CIPL) is providing a “Solar Nights” workshop. In a non-pressure environment, the workshop will provide “up-to-date & valuable information to assist congregations who are ready to go solar, or just curious!”

For those congregations that are ready to go solar, the workshop will provide practical options that will help them save money. And for those congregations that are not sure if solar is the right option for them, the workshop will provide information that will help them decide.  It’s open to all–church leaders, laypersons, or the just plain curious. In addition, it’s free.

Here are the basics:

Date: Thursday, February 9, 2012

Time: 7 pm - 9pm

Location: Church of the Foothills, 19211 Dodge Avenue, Santa Ana, CA  92705

Cost: Free (A free will offering to cover the cost of printed program materials will be accepted.)

RSVP and Questions:
Allis Druffel, 310-752-3436
allis@interfaithpower.org
Deborah Strunk, 714-809-6166
deborah.strunk@att.net

Additional information is available on the OCICE flyer.

Photo: Reverend Canon Sally Bingham of Interfaith Power & Light

According to Southern California gardening expert Pat Welsh, January is a good time to plant the following vegetables in your Southern California garden.

From transplants:

• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Lettuce
• Parsley
• Peas
• Swiss chard

From seeds:

• Beets
• Carrots
• Lettuce
• Mesclun
• Peas
• Radishes
• Turnips

As bareroot:

• Short-day onions
• Artichokes
• Asparagus
• Strawberries
  (Point of interest, at least to me: Strawberries are not technically a fruit or vegetable, but rather an accessory fruit.)
• Rhubarb
• Horseradish

However, she lists the last three with reservations: According to Welsh, in Southern California, November is a better time to plant strawberries; rhubarb is difficult to grow, and horseradish grows like a weed.

Source: Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening: Month by Month In this book, Welsh provides month-by-month information on planting, watering, fertilizing, and pruning vegetables, fruits and ornamentals in your Southern California garden.

Photos courtesy Seeds of Change

A thought for living in the New Year:

The Roman philosopher Tacitus rightly observed that “the desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise.” If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.-Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

Photo courtesy Smithsonian Institution via Flickr

Forgiveness, a virtue that is fundamental to Christianity, is poignantly displayed in a true story that is told by a Muslim.

After 9/11, a white supremacist in Texas wanted revenge. He took his gun and shot three people he believed were Arab. One of the men he shot survived. That man, Rais Bhuiyan, worked to understand and forgive his shooter and then took a surprising step to prevent the man from being executed.-The Story

After completing a Muslim pilgrimage and talking with Dr. Rick Halprin, Director of the Human Rights Education Program at the Southern Methodist University, Rais Bhuiyan decided to do three things: try to save his shooter’s life, help the families of the deceased victims in the same shooting spree–both financially and emotionally, and help the daughter of his shooter.

Please listen to this poignant story that is so pertinent to the Christmas season.

Hate is going on in this world, and it has to stop. Hate causes a lifetime of pain.-statement by Mark Stroman, the shooter, while on death row

Photo “The Children’s Memorial at Lidice, Czech Republic commemorating the 82 children murdered by the Nazis in vans adapted to kill with exhaust gas and buried at Chelmno”–SMU Human Rights Education Program

Some background on Dr. Rick Halprin:

Since 1996, I have been visiting, photographing, and videotaping Holocaust and other World War II sites across Europe.  I am also conducting oral history interviews with Holocaust survivors, World War II participants, and the descendants of both groups. I bring this research and documentation into my classrooms as part of my on-going efforts to humanize, personalize, and raise awareness of that tragic era.”–Dr. Rick Halprin

According to Cindy McNatt, Orange County Register gardening columnist, December is a good time to plant the following vegetables in your Orange County garden.

• Lettuce
• Mustard
• Chervil
• Chives
• Cilantro
• Dill
• Parsley
• Peas
• Onions
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Strawberries

McNatt provides this information in her column titled December garden guide. The column also provides information on planting ornamentals, watering, and pruning in your December Orange County garden.

Note: You might also get some good information from Pat Welsh’s book Southern California Organic Gardening–Month by Month.

Photo courtesy Abundant Life Seeds

Ditch the word consumer and just get behind the people doing stuff….We are all still pioneers.–Britta Riley on TED TV

The following video offers a twofer: First, it explains a method for growing your own food garden in small spaces, even inside apartments. Building window farms is the method used to create these vertical gardens. (I wrote about vertical gardens from another angle in a previous post.) Second, the video redefines the word “consumer” as well as redefines how business should and could work.

When you watch the video, you might find a few more categories in which this video could be placed. So watch the video and get some food for thought. Pun intended.

Britta Riley describes herself as an innovation culture hacker, social entrepreneur and artist who is working “to open up new markets that I think people and nature need now…. [Her] current company, Windowfarms.org was named one of the top 100 businesses to watch in 2010 by Entrepreneur Magazine. Windowfarms makes vertical hydroponic platforms for food growing in city windows in conjunction with an online citizen science web platform with over 16,000 community members worldwide.”

Previously, I wrote about the Phytopod as an example of vertical gardening and an upcoming post will discuss another version, window farms. That post will be about how social media is playing a part in perfecting a particular type of vertical gardening as well as redefining the word “consumer.” In the meantime, you can learn more about vertical gardening at an upcoming talk at the next Laguna Beach Garden Club talk.

Even the narrowest of spots can host a lush garden with careful planning and adaptable plants. Find out how this is done at the next general meeting of the Laguna Beach Garden Club on Friday, December 09. Landscape Designer and “Horticulture” Magazine Contributing Editor Rebecca Sweet talks about ’skinny space’ solutions and the gardening techniques that can reduce the visual impact of unattractive landscape features. Ms. Sweet is the co-author of the best selling book “Garden Up! Smart Vertical Gardening for Large and Small Spaces“, blogs on www.gossipinthegarden.com, and contributes to many popular garden magazines such as “Horticulture“, “Women’s Day Gardening“, “Fine Gardening” and “The American Gardener“.–Laguna Beach Information Center

Here are the details in a nutshell:

What: Vertical Gardening for Large and Small Spaces

When: Friday, December 9, 2011; 9:30 am

Where: Presbyterian Church (Tankersley Fellowship Hall), 415 Forest Avenue. Laguna Beach (corner of Forest and 2nd Street)

Cost: Free to first-time visitors

Graphic courtesy Susan Morrison/Rebecca Sweet

Abundance--Southern California style

Here is what I seek this Thanksgiving Day and all days:

Empower me
To be a bold participant,
Rather than a timid saint in waiting,
In the difficult ordinariness of now;
To exercise the authority of honesty,
Rather than to defer to power,
Or deceive to get it;
To influence someone for justice,
Rather than impress anyone for gain;
And, by grace, to find treasures
Of joy, friendship, of peace
Hidden in the fields of the daily
You give me to plow.–Ted Loder

Photo courtesy Weekend Sherpa

If you would like a few laughs–well, a lot of laughs–with your environmental awareness, then How to Boil a Frog is the film for you. To see what I mean, watch the trailer. Along with the laughs, the film “offers five surprising ways we can save civilization while making our own lives better.” The writer and director, Jon Cooksey, started out with the goal of disproving climate change but while doing the research became a believer.

How to Boil a Frog will be showing at the Chapman University Auditorium on Sunday, November 20^th. General admission is $7 in advance and $10 at the door. The senior and student ticket price is $3 in advance and $5 at the door. However, no one will be turned away.

Times are as follows:

• Presentations-3 pm
• Film screening and Q & A with the writer-4 pm
• Catered reception at Chapman’s Fish Interfaith Center-6 pm

More information on this screening is available at OCICE.org. In addition, the DVD is available online.

Some of the sponsors are United Religions Initiative, Orange County Interfaith Coalition for the Environment (OCICE), Westside Interfaith Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, Raul Wallenberg Institute of Ethnics,  Spiritual and Religious Alliance for Hope (S.A.R.A. H.), Church of the Foothills, Tustin, Aldersgate Methodist Church, Sierra Club OC Global Warming Committee, Sacred Seasons Center, Spiritual Salons, Unity and Diversity World Council.

Note: Additional information is available at Energy Bulletin.