Sweet Orange

Try this recipe. I think it’s delicious!

Put the following in a blender:

• 1.5 cups of Trader Joe’s Organic Green Tea Lemonade (or some facsimile)
• 2 stalks of organic celery
• a handful of organic greens (a salad mix or spinach, whatever you have on hand)

Now blend, drink, enjoy!

If you use organic ingredient, the health benefits to yourself and our shared environment are greatly increased. (Eventually, I plan on write more on this. For now, see this short, out-of-the-months-of-babes video: My Potato Project: The Importance of “Organic.”)

If you think that you can’t afford organic produce, an inexpensive option does exit: Grow your own. And if you live in an apartment or small space and think that you don’t have the enough room to grow produce, think again!

See this video to see what I mean:

Here are a few more suggestions for growing your own veggies and fruits in small spaces: 66 Things You Can Grow At Home In Containers: Without a Garden and Gardening is for Apartment Dwellers Too!

Note: If your time is more important than your money, businesses exist that will do the planting for you.

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

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

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.

The Orange County Interfaith Coalition for the Environment (OICE) is presenting an energy symposium this Sunday, November 6th, that will provide information on why you should care about environmental issues. Among other things, the presenters will discuss how our energy use is tied to our national security as well as how caring for the environment has not only practical consequences but is also a moral issue.

Here is a bit about the four presenters as written on the OCICE website:

Robert Siebert–”Bob retired from an engineering career (secure long range data communications) in 1989 and founded Energy Efficiency in the same year. Energy Efficiency was a privately held solar electric systems design and installation company through 2002, when he sold the company….As a result of his hands-on experience with solar and a long term interest in renewable energy, Bob has continued advocating for a greater role for energy efficiency and for energy sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal in our national energy mix.”

Miranda Ko–”One of the youngest trained presenters under Al Gore, Miranda has already worked at Sanyo, Brown University, Clinton Global Initiative University, and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UCSD….In April 2011, Miranda was named Green Goddess of Women’s Health Magazine for her work with Al Gore and The Climate Reality Project, working as their Assistant Regional Manager for Southern California.”

Tom English, Ph.D.–”Dr. English is the President of the TESSI Endangered Species Institute, and the Creation Care Educator for the Presbyterian Church’s Synod of Southern California and Hawaii….He is currently featuring the effects of Climate Change and Extinction of Species on Food Supply and National Security.”

David Feldman, Ph. D.–”David Lewis Feldman is Chair of the Department of Planning, Policy and Design at the University of California, Irvine, and Professor of Political Science. His research and teaching interests include sustainable water resources management, global change and society, and environmental ethics.”

He has written numerous books and held numerous positions related to energy policy. Here are a few examples: Water (to be released in 2012), editor of The Geopolitics of Natural Resources (2011), and author of Water Policy for Sustainable Development (2007).

More in-depth descriptions of the event and the presenters are available on the OCICE website, but here are the basics:

What: Energy and Our Future Symposium

Time: 2 pm to 5 pm with registration at 1:30 pm

Location: Congregation B’Nai Israel (2111 Bryan Avenue, Tustin, CA  92780)

Cost: $10

Hope to see you there!

Not all gardening has to be in the ground, horizontal, or take up much space. Vertical gardening is what I am talking about. The Phytopod is one example, but numerous other possibilities exist. (However, I do particularly like the way the Phytopod looks.)

According to one of the ads for the Phytopod:

Your can have 20 square feet of planting area on a 2′ x 2′ footprint! Plant lettuce, basil, tomatoes, radishes, spinach, herbs, flowers–anything you would want in a garden patch…!

The example in the picture seems to be planted with some greens–great for a fall garden.

I like it! Renters, apartment dwellers, all who have limited space, rise up. Start your own garden.

Click here to see a video of how it works. (I suggest that you ignore the big bug at the beginning of the video, but that’s just me.)

Photo courtesy Vertical Home Gardens