Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Pocket Guides!!

The Monterey Bay Aquarium is an incredible place to visit.  Education, and preservation, seem to be two of their primary objectives.  To that end they created the Seafood Watch site to help consumers understand which fish were the best to choose when thinking about the health of the species, the environment, and their own.  I posted about this a couple of years back, and included the link on our sidebar, but with so much information who can keep up?  Okay, I got the only eat Wild Alaskan Salmon thing down, but on some others I was dead wrong.   Today I was at the market trolling for fresh fish.  I cam out with some Tilefish, and some Rainbow Trout from South Carolina.  Having never tried Tilefish before I checked it out on the Seafood Watch site and was not entirely happy with what I found out.  Mid-Atlantic Tilefish "good", Southeast (gulf) Tilefish "bad". Tilefish is also listed a fish of concern due mercury contamination so limited consumption is suggested.
Well, with thoughts to the future I found that the MBA Seafood Watch site has a hand dandy printoutable pocket guide for each region of the country. Click here to download the one page pocket guide for the Southeast (that's us).  While your there you can also check out their stash of seafood recipes.

If They Cook It They Will Eat It

Thanks to Jackie for sending us info on  The Lunch Love Community project.  Visit their website to view any number of short films on the efforts made in Berkley to improve the awareness, skills, and health of Berkley school children through food.  Good Stuff.

Turning a grassy backyard into an organic garden - the easy way.

Brother Al was generous enough to write about (and photograph) his experience installing a raised, square foot garden last weekend! Read on...

Let's start with the fact that I am not a gardener, but I want to be. I have a grassy backyard with soil as deep as a microchip and about as healthy as prison lunch. I wanted to plant healthy food to feed my small family but I didn't know how. Should I get my soil tested (what little soil there is)? Should I dig? Should I make raised beds? Where? What to plant? When?

These seem like such basic questions, but I had no answers. There are a zillion books and a gazillion internet articles (now a gazillion and one). Where to start reading? Which one is right? You see, the questions were increasing, answers few and far between, and no garden was happening. I was stuck.

Enter the Sustainable Food Center in Austin. I met them while attending a TEDx event. They brought a live chicken and charts about compost to a technology seminar. Hello - I fell for them quickly. Erin and I had a meeting with them and learned that they do more cool things than a juggling disco troupe. I also learned that they were teaching a "Citizen Gardener" class that advertised in its description it would teach me how to make an organic garden out of a grassy backyard with no previous knowledge required. Were they reading my mind, and how?

I never did figure out how they were reading my mind, but I did find out exactly how to make a garden, and a nice one at that. I though I'd share with you what little of their knowledge I soaked up so that you can do this too. It's easy. I promise.

Several quick points:

1) None of the knowledge here comes from me. It's all kind of open source and taken from a number of places such as a book by Mel Bartholomew called "All New Square Foot Gardening". There are a lot of resources out there to improve upon this blog post (just Google "Square Foot Gardening").

2) What was so cool to me about all of this was that there was an action plan to follow - do this, then this, then this, then eat. Now I am sure there are areas anyone can improve on. And you will surely improve on these ideas. But the basics technique is a quick and very straightforward method to go from lame unhealthy grass to a healthy source of food in a number of easy to follow steps. So let's go.

The idea is to create one or more 4 foot by 4 foot raised beds (about 8-12 inches high) in which you'll do some intensive gardening. You don't need a lot of space! Each 4 foot by 4 foot raised beds is then divided (mentally, not physically) into sixteen square foot areas. Each area is planned out and grown to create a high yield, easy to manage garden. One bed per mouth is a good place to start. I went for two. But remember to start small - this is intense gardening.

Here's my makeshift carpentry area where I cut down the 2 by 12 cedar boards for the raised beds (you can do 2 by 10s no problem and probably even 2 by 8s). Here in Texas we're spoiled with cedar. You can use anything, just make sure it's not treated with gross chemicals that will surely leach into your food.

Then I planned out where the garden would go. In a sunny (and grassy) part of my lawn, I laid down an area of cardboard that is then soaked with water and covered in mulch to prevent weeds and grass from ruining the garden. The cardboard looks kind of ghetto, but it's free, and once covered in mulch no longer looks so ghetto.

Here's the soon-to-be-less-ghetto-looking cardboard weed preventer with a pile of compost I made over the winter in the background. Yum - compost!

The first raised bed is filled with dirt I scavenged from another area of my unhealthy yard combined with compost - mmmmm. I even made a little dainty moveable seat out of the scraps of boards left over from making the raised beds. I copied this from my class. Don't think I'm that clever.

Here's the first 4 foot by 4 foot bed placed on the watered cardboard. In the background there's more compost I got from the Sustainable Food Center. Theirs is so much more delicious looking than mine...

Leveled out the second bed, and spread mulch around the first.

Tied up some string to level the two beds with each other (yes I'm that annoying), and spread mulch around both beds. Call up your local tree service - I got all the mulch I could use (which is a lot) all for free.

Each bed is divided into sixteen squares - here a little string helps out with the visualization. Then each square is planned out

according to how large each plant gets and how many of each plant can be fitted in a single square. Some plants, like tomatoes, are one per square. Other plants, like radishes, carrots, garlic, and spinach, can have six, nine, or even sixteen plants per square foot. Wow! Make sure you plant short plants towards the South and tall plants towards the North so that the tall ones don't shadow the short ones. Flip that if you're in Australia.

Then the plants go in the dirt! Some of these were transplants, and others I started from seed. There are tomatoes, basil, several kinds of chard, hot chili peppers, bell peppers, cucumbers, spinach, radishes, potatoes and I even have a square left for carrots. And that's only one bed! You can also plant flowers, especially ones that bad bugs and deer and annoying rodents don't like.

And there you go! I even made a little journal where I made grids and notes and dated entries. But if you're not a nerd you don't have to do that. Most important is getting a garden going and having fun.

I'll follow up through the growing seasons with some updates. I hope this can inspire others to begin growing healthy food instead of weedy grass! Thanks to all who were involved in teaching me this great technique. I had a blast and look forward to more growing - and eating.

Interesting query on Richmond Community Garden Initiative

We got an email from a reader who is new to Richmond, wondering how to get in on one of the new city designated community garden plots. She writes:

From what I understand on the website it seems that a group first needs to apply to manage a site and then individual gardeners must apply for a plot with the managing group (right?).

I thought I'd ask if you know of any groups that have applied to the Parkwood or Leigh street gardens. I'd LOVE a plot....just need to make the right connections!

The reader contacted the city to clarify the process, and here is what she found out:

The website will say who has permitted out the property and a contact number for that garden once it’s all been approved…right where you look at them now. Its all automated with is good because it probably would get out of hand with all the requests! We’ve got a group interested and working on permitting the Parkwood site.

So, if you would like to have a plot in one of the new city gardens, act fast!

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange Sues Monsanto

Just reading over the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange page thinking of spring and such, and found this rather amazing news....
"Fighting for our Rights
Southern Exposure is joining the fight against Monsanto in a critical suit that argues that Monsanto cannot sue farmers when their organic crops are contaminated by genetically modified seeds. We are collaborating as a part of OSGATA (Organic Seed and Trade Association) and as an individual plaintiff along with several dozen other seed companies and organizations to bring Monsanto to the stand. You can read this press release that has been posted by the Public Patent Foundation. We will send out a special newsletter soon with more details. We hope you will support us in this landmark lawsuit to protect our rights as gardeners, farmers, and Americans seeking a safe future for our food and families."
Click on Their Link to read more.

New Community Gardens in the city!

'Tis spring, and we are so grateful to spend time outside, digging in the dirt if we are lucky. This has been an exciting week for community gardens in RVA. The Tricycle Gardens farm stand is now open at 2107 Jefferson Ave from 4-6 pm every Tuesday and Thursday with lots of spring veggies from their urban farm.

And, last Monday the Richmond Grows Gardens Initiative passed. This program of the city’s Green Richmond aims:

• To support the sustainability goals for the city of Richmond: improve the quality of life for residents, create a healthy environment and enhance economic development and job creation opportunities;
• To increase the public’s understanding of the value of community gardens and the need for community gardens in the city;
• To encourage and facilitate local urban agriculture which increases access to fresh, nutritional food for residents-particularly those in underserved communities; and
• To transform vacant and underutilized city parcels into productive gardens.

Way to go, Richmond!

Also, I was so excited to see the Backyard Farmers yesterday, helping the students and faculty of St. Catherine's school install a new community and teaching garden right on Grove Avenue!

Lots of folks got in on the act digging beds, putting raised bed frames together and building compost bins. It was a beautiful sight indeed.

Relay Foods for Richmond!

Okay, it's about time, or rather well beyond time that we talk about Relay Foods. I have been hoping to use them myself before writing about them. Between online market memberships, and visits to area markets it just hasn't happened.
Relay started out in Charlottesville, and began operating in Richmond about a year ago.
By now I have heard from a few people who have used this on-line food market All have loved it for the convenience, selection, and reasonable cost. There is no membership fee, vendors pay the administrative cost. I have mixed feelings about that, hoping the benefits of greater reach make it worth the added cost for vendors. When it comes to vendors, Relay offers products from an amazing collection of local farms, small local food producers, larger grocery stores, gourmet shops, specialty shops, and even wine and beer shops. They mix big corporate products with fresh local ones.
You can order as many, or few times as you like, and choose pick up or home delivery per-order. Home delivery is scheduled once a week by zip code. Delivery cost between twelve dollars for a one time request and works its way down to a seven dollar a week fee for a one year commitment. Pickup is, of course, free.
There do seem to be a lot of great things about Relay's set up. One of my favorites is the flexibility in pick up locations. You can order multiple times per week if you need to using different pick up locations each time. There are over a dozen locations all over town from Rockets Landing, to Innsbrook and Mechanicsville. Two different locations in The Fan, and two in the Libbie Ave. area, as well as ones in Church Hill, Bon Air, Stony Point, and Down Town. Also great, you can place stuff in your shopping cart and leave your cart open for days, adding items as you need to. You can keep adding stuff right up until midnight the night before your pickup or delivery date.
Some of my favorite shopping options in the mix include J. Emerson Wines, Blanchard's Coffee, Carpe Donut!!, Gearharts' Chocolates, Planet Earth Diversified, Harmony Hill Farm, Sausage Craft, Polyface Farm, Night Sky Farm, and Mountain View Farm. Okay, writing this post has motivated me. I'm going to order from Relay, and I'll let you know how it goes. If any of you out there are using them let us know what you think! I wouldn't want On-line shopping to ever take the place of the real contact and sense of community created by shopping at farmers markets. But, not everyone is going to go to farmers markets, or go out of their way to reach that speciality shop all the time. If online markets like Relay, the Online Market at St. Stephen's and Lulu's Local Foods, make it possible for more small farms and small business to find an audience and succeed then I'm all for it.
To check out their pretty fantastic website click Here.