Chico, Sustainable

An arborist friend told me that downtown Chico is home to a date palm that has been known to produce edible fruits.

I am not sure whether to be impressed or fearful.

While I am all for fruit-producing trees in the urban area, the idea that the concrete jungle of downtown Chico maintains a warm enough environment (the "heat island effect") to support a date palm is a bit unnerving.

A watered-down version of TreeAction's tree ordinance was adopted by the City of Chico a couple weeks ago, requiring property owners of undeveloped lots larger than 10,000 square feet to obtain a permit to remove a tree 18" in diameter or greater.

Umm, yay?

A good start, but I would have liked to have seen trees down to 12" protected, or even better, a clause that addresses the number of trees that can be removed from a given location based on the total number of trees and their respective sizes. For example, a site that has lain fallow for 20 years may have numerous young valley oaks less than 18"; if would be good to see some of them be allowed to continue to grow and mature. The goal: Insure that the urban forest canopy continues to improve and provide shade, oxygen, beauty, and CO2 sequestration for future generations to enjoy.

On a related note the approved ordinance will also require future parking lot developers to include shade trees in parking lot designs if the lot holds 25 or more vehicles.

Looks great on paper, I would like to see it enforced in practice.

A hearty thank to Jim (new dad!) and to Magnolia Gift and Garden on East Avenue for their continued support of school gardens through generous donations of seeds and discounted plant starts. As a result of these gifts, aromatic, drought tolerant, and butterfly-attracting plants will be in bloom this spring at the base of fruit trees at Chico Country Day School, AND hundreds of seed packets from Magnolia (and OSH and Plant Barn) will soon be distributed for use in school classrooms and school gardens throughout the city.

Another reason to support Magnolia Gift and Garden: Discounts on bare-root fruit trees from now until they are gone. And when you purchase one of these trees, be sure to touch base with staff who can recommend some good plants and shrubs to plant at the base of these trees to attract pollinators, discourage aphids, and improve soil health while at the same time adding to the beauty of your yard.

The Chico Women's Club is hosting the annual Bioneers Film Series starting January 28. As usual, the Bioneers Conference featured an inspiring selection of speakers, including author Michael Pollan and activist Joanna Macy.

Pollan, along with permaculturist Brock Dolman and World Pulse Media founder Jensine Larsen are the first speakers in the film series.

Bioneers Film Series: Revolution from the Heart of Nature
Thursday, January 28th at 7pm
Chico Women's Club (592 East 3rd Street, Chico)
Donation $2 - $5, Students free
For more info: 345-5560

For the full Bioneers Film Series schedule, follow the link to the Chico Peace and Justice Center calendar.

I attended a conference for educators over the Martin Luther King Day weekend. This year's theme for the conference theme was sustainability. Here are some of the inspirational snippets that I copied into my notebook:

EFFICIENCY
Living a holistic, sustainable life does not mean to live efficiently. We do not treat the things we care about or the ones we love efficiently.

PREPARING STUDENTS
"Preparing students for the world" is no longer a valid phrase. The world as we know it needs to change. Our students should be educated such that when they move into the next stage of their lives, the world is not prepared for them.

SWIMMING UPSTREAM
Teachers can take lessons from the salmon, whose existence as a species depends on their ability to swim upstream. The stronger the current, the greater the will of the salmon.

UNDERSTANDING
To understand is to see relationships, and how things mutually illuminate each other.

Yep. It was a good conference.

If you have some extra time on your hands, and you want to make a bunch of new friends, there are plenty of grants out there for school gardens.

Some of them even allow you to take money from Monsanto and use it to teach students about organic gardening.

The bottom line is that generally speaking, our teachers don't have time to write for these grants (they are busy teaching), but the money is there for the taking. The school gardens at McManus Elementary, Chico Junior, Bidwell Jr., and Chico Country Day School have been funded in this manner, as well as a few others that I am probably missing.

Here are a couple of the links I start with when writing for school and community garden grants. Respond to this post if you like some additional ideas.

California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom Grant Page

San Diego Master Gardeners Association Calendar of Grants

My New Year's Resolution: Use less water when I shower. My plan: The "Navy shower."
1. Turn on the water
2. Immediately wet the body
3. Turn off the water
4. Soap up and scrub
5. Turn the water back on and rinse off the soap
6. Turn off the water

Happy New Year!

Don't be overwhelmed by styrofoam packaging this holiday season! Butte County Public Works is offering the following drop-off points for styrofoam recycling:

Block Styrofoam
*Northern Recycling & Waste Services, 920 American Way, Paradise
*Recology of Butte Colusa Counties, 2720 S. 5th Ave, Oroville
*Recology of Butte Colusa Counties, 3097 Southgate Ln, Chico.
*North Valley Waste Management, 2569 Scott Ave, Chico.
*Neal Road Recycling & Waste Facility, 1023 Neal Road.
*Ginno's Appliance, 2505 Zanella Way, Chico.
*Sierra Waste Solutions, 3030 Thorntree, Chico.
*A-1 Appliance, 2586 Olive Hwy, Oroville.
*Chico City Hall Parking Lot, 411 Main St, Chico.

Styrofoam Peanuts
* A & C Postal Center, 975 East Ave., Chico
* Chico Box & Postal Center, 230 Walnut #C, Chico
* Mail Boxes Etc., 702 Mangrove Ave., Chico
* UPS Store, 1354 East Ave. # R, Chico
* UPS Store, 2485 Notre Dame Blvd. #370, Chico
* Paradise Postal Center Plus, 5905 Clark Rd., Paradise
* Postal Plus, 236 W. East Ave. #A, Chico
* The Packaging Store, 6044 Skyway, Paradise

More recycling information for Butte County, including how to recycle Christmas Trees, can be found at: http://www.buttecounty.net/RecycleButte.aspx

Winter rains have me thinking about the use of rain barrels to collect runoff from our roof. The water would be saved for dry spells and used to water plants near the house.

In theory, we could collect over 70,000 gallons of rainwater from our roof in an average Chico year (26" rain/year, 1" of rainfall yields 623 gallons of water off 1000 square feet of roof). Storage of this much water, however, would require either 1,300 55-gallon rain barrels or a some really large tanks, neither of which are practical for our suburban home, both physically and economically.

So what is realistic for the Joe Chico who wants to install a rain barrel or two to "do the right thing?" And would such a move be cost effective? Here is one hypothetical scenario:

When it comes to dishwasher common sense, I wish I had more of it.

A common water-saving tip is to not pre-rinse your dishes prior to putting them into the dishwasher, with the idea that the dishwasher should be able to handle the added gunk.

So I don't (didn't) pre-rinse. But for some reason the dishwasher can't handle the added gunk, and some of the dishes come out. . .gunky.

But I think I found the problem. We don't go through enough dishes.

If we ran the dishwasher every day, then wet foodstuffs wouldn't have a chance to dry out prior to being washed. But we simply do not fill up the dishwasher fast enough to warrant a daily run.

So in our case, the water-saving choice is to pre-rinse, as it takes even more water (and time and aggravation) to scour gunky dishes that come out of the dishwasher then it does to rinse them ahead of time.