Archive for August, 2010
Berkeley Farmers’ Market String Band Contest
Come join the Ecology Center on Saturday, September 11 for the Berkeley Farmers’ Market String Band Contest! The Contest will start with a Youth Showcase followed by 20 bands playing two tunes each. Fiddles, banjos, and fun for the whole family. Contest winners get handfuls of “wooden nickels” redeemable for fresh organic produce at the [...]
Egg Safety and the Berkeley Farmers’ Market
Ben Feldman, Program Manager of the Berkeley Farmers’ Markets, discusses the reasons why buying eggs at the farmers’ market is safer that buying eggs at a grocery store: “Salmonella enteritidis, the strain of the bacteria responsible for the current recall, has become the single most common type of food poisoning in the US. Chickens act [...]
Ecology Center Youth Attend Rooted in Community Conference
Taking a weekend out of their summer schedules, four Farm Fresh Choice youth represented the Ecology Center at the Rooted in Community conference in Portland, Maine. Nakia Dillard, Christian Ramirez, Kad Smith, and Shawn Stewart presented skits, toured gardens, and networked with youth from around the country over the first weekend in August. Rooted in Community is a national [...]
New York Times Op Ed: Locavores Need Math Lessons
Stephen Budiansky, author of the blog liberalcurmudgeon.com, wrote an op ed piece in the New York Times blasting the local food movement as having devolved into “another one of those self-indulgent — and self-defeating — do-gooder dogmas.” He accuses locavores of perpetuating “arbitrary rules, without any real scientific basis.” His argument focuses on quantifying energy [...]
One Oakland Woman’s Crusade to Live Life with Less Plastic
Oakland resident Beth Terry started her blog, Fake Plastic Fish, a few years ago when she came across Chris Jordan’s photos of dead seabirds with their bellies full of plastic pieces. Terry vowed to reduce her consumption of plastic, and to document her progress on her blog. Terry says, “Living with less plastic is really [...]
Grover WonderGrow Compost Once Again Approved for Organic Farmers
In the spring issue of Terrain Magazine, the article “Compost Confidential” covered the travails of Grover—the composter that turns Berkeley’s kitchen and yard waste into rich compost that many regional organic farms used. Bifenthrin, a pesticide found in some commercial lawn fertilizers, was detected in Grover’s WonderGrow Compost, along with Nortech Gold and Clean City [...]
Create a Food Forest in Your Yard!
Local permaculture expert Christopher Shein will be teaching a Fruit Tree Guild workshop at EcoHouse on Saturday, August 21. Tree guilds have a central element (a fruit tree or nut tree), mulch plants, nitrogen fixer, nutrient/dynamic accumulators, insectaries for beneficial insects, a vine layer, mushrooms, and the soil food web. The fruit tree guild is [...]
This Saturday: Green Hip Hop at Fresh Fest
After you’ve tasted the tomatoes at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, head over to Mosswood Park in Oakland to check out Fresh Fest, a half day of music and events to celebrate health, wellness, community self-sufficiency, green living and climate justice. There will be food tastings, storytelling, poetry, green hip-hop and green living education and activities. [...]
This Saturday: Free Tomato Tasting at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market
This Saturday, at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market, you can sample an amazing range of tomato varieties for free. It’s an all-star lineup of heirlooms, from the illustrious to the obscure: Great White, Black Prince, Marvel Stripe, Cherokee Purple, Brandywine, Sun Gold, Sweet One Hundred, Green Zebra, Yellow Pear, Sweet Gold, Early Girl, Lemon Boy, Black [...]
Grocery Store in Washington DC Removes Bottled Water Stock
The Ecology Center received exciting news from our friend Annie Leonard, author of the book The Story of Stuff and narrator of the Story of Stuff viral videos that are burning up the Web. She sent us this photograph of a grocery store in Washington DC that has cleared out their bottled water stock and [...]
Ask the EcoTeam: My New Carpet is Off-Gassing!
Dear EcoTeam, The new carpet in my apartment is off-gassing, and I’m dizzy and nauseous from the fumes. How long will it take to finish this process? Can I speed it up? Is my landlord obligated to do anything? Also, I need a new mattress. After this experience with the carpet, I wonder what I [...]
Cooking Class this Tuesday by Kitchen on Fire
Tuesday, August 31 will be the third in a series of free Cooking Classes at the Berkeley Farmers’ Markets facilitated by Kitchen on Fire. Kitchen on Fire will be demonstrating the preparation of Creamy Tomato Basil Soup with Olive Bread Toasts, Fresh Pesto Pasta with Heirloom Tomatoes, and Grilled Bruschetta with Tomato, Corn, & Balsamic [...]
Join the 100 Bag Monster Rally
Chico Bags, in support of California bill AB 1998 (the bill to ban plastic bags in California), is organizing a 100 Bag Monster rally on August 12th in Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco. The goal is to draw state-wide attention to the bill in its final stages, and let decision makers in Sacramento know that we [...]
Help Get the Word Out: Defeat Prop 23 this November!
From our friends at KyotoUSA: Two Texas oil companies are attempting to destroy California’s heroic effort to reduce the climate altering greenhouse gas emissions that are produced in the state. Valero and Tesoro are the primary funders of Proposition 23, a deceptive ballot proposition that would kill California’s AB 32 (Global Warming Solutions Act). Please help us [...]
