Chico, Sustainable

This year's the Gardeners' Swap Meets will be held at five regular locations on Wednesday evenings from June 4 to October 8.

The first one is this coming Wednesday at The Cause, 727 W 4th Ave.

As with last year, please plan on going home with at least as much produce as you arrive with. Unloading seven zucchini and taking a single plum is not nice.

What is a Gardeners' Swap Meet?
Do you have an excess of eggplants and a shortage of tomatoes? A plethora of peaches but a craving for apricots? Fill your ChicoBag (or container of choice) with your extra (but edible) home-grown fruits and/or veggies and SWAP them with another grower for something you like better. The swap meets are a free, weekly, community-building event sponsored by the Chico Food Network. Don’t have a garden? No problem—wild blackberries, the fruit from neglected plum trees and the like are welcome as well, but please avoid picking from plants growing close to major roads.

2008 SCHEDULE
Biking or walking to all locations is recommended. Don't forget to bring a couple of empty bags!

1ST Wednesday (6/4, 7/2, 8/6, 9/3, 10/1)
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. @ The Cause, 727 W. 4th Ave

2ND Wednesday (6/11, 7/9, 8/13, 9/10, 10/8)
4:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. @ the Chico Community Children's Center, 2224 Elm Street
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. @ the Chico Grange Hall, 2775 Old Nord Ave (near Rodeo Ave)

3RD Wednesday (6/18, 7/16, 8/20, 9/17)
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. @ the Chico Peace and Justice Center, 526 Broadway

4TH Wednesday (6/25, 7/23, 8/27, 9/24)
6:00 p.m. – 8:00 p.m. @ W 16th Street and Normal Ave

Reply to this blog entry for more information.

Posted by jmiller at 04:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A dedicated group of community volunteers and school employees teamed up to establish a school garden at McManus Elementary this past February. The garden includes nine raised beds, trellises, and signs identifying different vegetables and berries which have been planted by the students.

Over Memorial Day Weekend, the garden was hit for the second time by vandals, who pulled up plants and signs, snapped the trellises, and walked through the garden beds.

Like many of Chico's schools, McManus's campus serves as a park of sorts for the community; during non-school hours citizens frequently use the basketball courts, play fields, etc. The McManus garden is located in the center of the campus to maximize student access and involvement. However, school buildings shield the garden from the view of casual passersby on East Avenue, thus allowing bored vandals to deface the garden in relative seclusion, especially in the early hours of the morning.

It angers me that there are people in our community who are so willfully destructive and hurtful, but at the same time I pity what their lives must be like, if this is one of their favorite pastimes.

It is a sad and frustrating situation to try and solve.

Survellience cameras have been suggested, but there is no money available at the moment, and I am skeptical that it will work--And besides, cameras need to be maintained, footage needs to be viewed, etc.

Others believe that we should fence off the garden area and put it under lock and key. But I fear that this would turn the garden into a compound or a fortress, rather than a space of smiles and reflection.

I told Debra, the Garden Educator at McManus, to rebuild, plant again, and in doing so show and teach determination to the students who have been effected.

In the mean time, I plead to the community to recognize that a school garden that is accessible to the greater population becomes a community garden, hopefully to be enjoyed by all. If you live near McManus Elementary, or any other school that has a school garden, please keep an eye out.

A community that cares is the best defense against those who don't.

Posted by jmiller at 12:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The neighbor's cherry tree, at least 2/3 of which is on our side of the fence, is literally dripping with fruit. My wife and I picked about 5 gallons of them in two 30 minute sessions last week. Any thoughts about how best to preserve them? The best tip we have recieved thus far is to purchase a cherry pitter for about $15. Where does one find a cherry pitter?--At Collier Hardware (established 1871) of course.

On a different topic, a friend of ours told us she keeps the sprinkler on all the time, 24 hours a day. She is on a flat rate, and doesn't see it as wasting water, rather, she feels that she is "returning it to the aquifer," and is thus in her own small way offsetting any efforts on the part of CalWater to pump and ship water from the Tuscan Aquifer to points south.

I see where she is coming from, but I respectfully disagree with her approach on scientific grounds. How deep the water from her sprinklers sink I do not know, but I doubt it will ever recharge the same aquifer from which it came. From what I understand, the recharge of the Tuscan Aquifer is in the foothills and mountains east of Chico, where the angles of the sloping rock formations allow rainfall and melting snow to slowly seep down beneath Chico as if flowing down an underground ramp.

But as I have mentioned before, most of our knowledge of the Tuscan Aquifer is best guess. As such, a substance as valuable is water is not something to be messed with lightly, and it doesn't matter are if you are a citizen who is still on a flat rate or if you are the CEO of CalWater.

Posted by jmiller at 07:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yet again, this weekend anyone living south of Bidwell Park will be able to hear the sound of carbon footprints (footsteps?) echoing from the Silver Dollar Speedway.

Yep, it's sprint car season.

How many people would have to bike to the fairgrounds to offset the carbon footprint of an evening of sprint car racing?

How many people would have to take a vow of silence for a week to offset the noise pollution?

Call me "not from a NASCAR state," but I just don't understand the "thrill" of watching a bunch of silly-looking over-sized go-carts making continuous left turns.

Chico has a diversity of people-powered vehicles, why not race them? I would pay to see a no-holds-barred recumbent bicycle race. They could even throw in a couple of pedicabs to spice things up. Like the chariot scene in Ben Hur, but Chico style.

Posted by jmiller at 07:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For backyard gardeners who live in gopher and snail-infested country, it seems like raised garden beds are the way to go.

But what is the simplest solution? What is most effective? Cheapest? Sustainable?

My first attempt at answering to these questions was to build two garden beds out of urbanite (broken up concrete) from other parts of my property. It was certainly sustainable, after 6 months it seems to be effective, and my only purchase was the hardware cloth (wire mesh) that I used to line the beds. But though breaking up the concrete, moving it, and assembling it into garden beds didn't require much technical expertise, it sure was a lot of work.

Those who are handy with the hammer and saw can, of course, construct raised beds out of lumber (scrap wood that is bound for the dump is the most sustainable option, in my opinion). However damp soil is not the most forgiving of substances when it is in contact for wood for a long period of time (some call it decomposition), and even the most well-constructed wooden garden box won't last much longer than five or ten years, regardless of the type of wood you use or how it is treated.

Recently I discovered door number three: Used tires. Barring aesthetic distaste, they make the perfect raised bed for a small, backyard garden. With a hardware cloth liner and a band of copper strip, they become gopher-proof and snail-resistant. The black rubber helps to heat the soil, so you can start plants earlier in the spring. They come in an array of sizes, are easy to handle and place, work in small spaces, are durable, and even take a coat of paint, if so desired. And did I mention that they are free?--Tire stores must pay $4 each to get rid of them.

A gentleman named Charles Sanders seems to have written the definitive internet article on the subject, where he describes how to build composters from tires, grow potatoes, and create a multi-tiered terraced tire planter. Other sites have mentioned success with onions, tomatoes, berries, pumpkins, cucumbers, and cauliflower. Carrots and corn are cited as not being able to do as well in the heated soil being generated inside the black tires.

For those concerned about the chemicals in tires, I did a bit of research. The State of California Department of Education recommends against it, while both the Clark County Master Gardeners (Washington State University Extension) and the Purdue University Cooperative Extension do not have any reservations, with the WSU folks stating definitively that used tires do not release unwanted chemicals into the ground.

I found two more websites with additional information. See comments before installing tires in your backyard!

Posted by jmiller at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I am coming up on my second summer of gardening in Chico, and I am happy to say that I don't have a problem with gophers or moles, at least not yet. There seem to be no shortage of them in my neighbors yards.

There are likely a combination of reasons why they have to this point avoided my plants, and why I have not had to resort to traps or chemicals:

1) Dogs and cats, both of which are present in our yard, I am sure provide some level of gopher abatement.

2) Two prominent weeds border our yard--Datura ("Jimsom Weed") and spurge (euphorbia). Both of these plants contain very potent chemical compounds. In fact, we have 3-4 different varieties of spurge which grow and reseeds itself including petty spurge and gopher spurge. The spurges contain a milky sap that is an irritant to gohers (and to human skin which it readily chaps).

3) As a preemptive strike, our two raised beds are lined with wire mesh (aka hardware cloth), and we likewise lined the holes we dug for our berry bushes and bare root fruit trees with wire mesh "baskets."

4) I have heard mixed reviews about using garlic as a repellent. Apparently there are some garlic concentrates out there that the critters don't like, though fresh bulbs are not strong enough.

FYI, if you can live with them, gophers can have some positive effects on the garden, including the tilling of soil and moving of nutrients.

Posted by jmiller at 12:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So after I started bragging that I had planted over 30 varieties of veggies in my most grandiose garden ever, people began asking me for gardening advice.

Then the snails and slugs pretty much wiped out my radishes and basil seedlings, I planted summer squash, okra, and cucumbers (from seed) too early so they never sprouted, and a third of my tomatoes and peppers froze in that April 20 frost.

So no, I am not a professional at this (I never claimed to be), and luckily I am not looking to my yard to provide for the bulk of my household's nutritional needs, at least not this year.

That isn't to say that some things haven't work out the way I have planned, and apparently enough things are working (I am very proud of my corn at the moment) such that folks are still asking me for advice.

Snails, slugs top the list--How do I keep them from my plants without using poison?

Here is what I have learned (some of this may seem obvious to more experienced gardeners):

1) Wood chips and shady cracks between large rocks make great habitat for snails and slugs. Planting my radish seeds directly beneath some old wood chips was, in short, stupid.

2) Though I haven't tried it myself, I have heard that the use of small containers filled with beer are fair solutions at best. My instinct tells me that getting them to work effectively is a pretty high maintenance endeavor, and can be complicated by careless footsteps or an errant hose.

3) Last year I didn't have as much trouble with the slugs, and my brilliant snail solution was to, well, eat them. (Incidentally, that's why garden snails were originally introduced to California in the 1850's). Yes, I picked them off by hand, found a recipe, "purged them" on corn meal, and. . .well, it was a lot of work for what ended up being a cup of escargot (75 snails), which eventually found its way to the freezer and then the compost.

4) This year I am again picking off the snails by hand, and so long as I keep the wood chips away from the plants the slugs are not a big problem. Perhaps in a later years the snails will be food for domestic runner ducks, which apparently love the little slimeballs.

5) Ultimately I think the best method, when used effectively, will be to fasten a copper strip around the sides of a raised wood or brick planter bed. The strips are for sale at OSH, and apparently the snails don't like crawling over them. Lacking a raised wood or brick planter bed myself, I am forced to pick them off by hand or be sure to start my seedlings far away from their final destination.

Posted by jmiller at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My wife and I rented King Corn last week, a well-done, 90-minute documentary about two recent college grads who decide to learn about the corn industry in the U.S. by growing an acre of it.

I was very impressed by the documentary. The filmmakers didn’t employ “in your face” factoids to drive home their point, nor did they make the people they interviewed come across as fools a la Michael Moore.

Rather, they told the story like it is, respectfully interviewing all of the players and allowing the audience to come to their own conclusions.

My conclusions were that high fructose corn syrup, corn oil, and corn-based malodextrin do not need to be a part of my diet, and that corn should be grown as food for people rather than feed for cattle or fuel for my car.

I found the most though-provoking part of the movie to be an interview with then 97 year-old Earl Butts (he passed away in February), the former Secretary of Agriculture who implemented the farm policies that we still have in place today. He defends his decisions to subsidize the corn industry, pointing out that the result has been cheaper food for the American public, allowing us to spend more money on other goods and services.

The movie does not point out that those government subsidies do not extend to organic farmers, which is one reason that organic food is more costly.

According to USDA statistics, Americans spend about 10% of their budget on food, about half as much as we did in the 1950’s. By comparison, Canada spends 14%, Europe 15%, Mexico 26%, and Pakistan 70%. Does this mean that food in the rest of the world is of better quality, more expensive, of greater importance in the family budget, or some combination thereof?

Conversely, do the benefits of having more money in our American wallets and purses make up for the consequences of a generation that has been raised on cheap, subsidized, genetically modified, chemically-sprayed and fertilized, industrially processed food? This is the first generation that will not live as long as their parents. If this fact is indeed linked to our diet, then I ask, what have we spent our money on that has been worth taking a couple of years off of our lifespan?

Posted by jmiller at 08:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

G.R.U.B. benefit concerts have outgrown the Chico Peace and Justice Center, and will instead be holding an 11-band extravaganza at the Chico Women's Club on Thursday, May 15 at 6:30 p.m.

These guys continue to rock. While the money made from the benefit will go towards the purchase of farming tools, seeds, and help fund internship programs and school garden efforts, it won't go towards fuel costs.

This is because G.R.U.B. (Growing Resourcefully, Uniting Bellies) is almost entirely a bike-dependent operation, ranging from the delivery of CSA produce boxes to the collection of food waste from 6 local restaurants for use in composting operations.

The cost is $9, and that includes a veggie-curry dinner.

Please walk or bike if you are able.

Posted by jmiller at 12:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Once more with the gasoline math.

This time its not hypothetical, its personal.

I took a sub job at Pleasant Valley High School yesterday, which, according to Google Maps, is 3.4 miles from my house, a 10 minute drive mostly on Cohasset and East Avenue at less than 35 mph.

Round-trip is 6.8 miles.

At 24 mpg, I would burn 0.28 gallons of gas getting there and back.

At $3.80/gallon, it would cost me $1.07 to travel just under 7 miles.

Did I mention that it is a pleasant 20 minute bike ride along Lindo Channel to get from my house to PV?

Posted by jmiller at 04:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, May 13 will be the third in a series of "Key Issues" workshops hosted by the the City of Chico to gain public input for the new Chico General Plan. The focus of this workshop will be "Circulation/Mobility and Public Services." The workshops are taking place at the California Park Lakeside Pavilion from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

The city describes the General Plan "as the blueprint for the future. It represents the community's vision, a constitution made up of goals and policies to direct decision making." It covers everything from land use to historic building preservation to city recreation facilities.

I am very wary of this plan. I have doubts about both its strength as a document, and I have concerns about the ability of our city officials to see it implemented.

I scrolled through the 1994 General Plan, which is available in PDF form on the city website. Its not as if folks in 1994 didn't have a clue about the importance of things such as bike-friendly neighborhoods or green building design, however I found the language of the document to be more in the form of suggestions rather than policy. Words such as "strive," "explore," "promote," "encourage," and "consider" were used in abundance, but there were no "solid" statements. For example, rather than say "trees shall be planted to improve air quality," the document states that in order to improve air quality, the city will "promote the use of trees."

A similar item had to do with building construction, which states that builders must "Require consideration of passive solar management techniques in subdivision design."

For how many minutes must they consider it?

In the areas were there is solid language, enforcement seems to have been ignored. For example, there is a line that says "Portions of a construction site to remain inactive longer than 3 months shall be seeded and watered until grass cover is grown." Is the gravel desert in the North Valley Plaza between Ben & Jerry's and Tinseltown regarded as an inactive construction site? It seems to be to me, yet it has been both vacant and grass-free since I moved to Chico a year and half ago.

Though I was not able to find the exact passage, a colleague of mine also pointed out that there is a requirement that trees be planted as a part of new parking lot construction, which rarely happens to the extent required.

So what good is a General Plan that is either too weak or is ignored outright? I asked this of our city officials at one of these meetings, and other participants pointed out that the two key factors here are having money to implement the plan and having elected officials that abide by it in making decisions.

I don't think that words like "consider," "encourage" and "promote" will discourage a developer with millions of dollars from putting in whatever building he or she wants wherever he or she wants it.

To those of you who gave input in the development of the 1994 plan: Looking back at Chico over the last 14 years, are you happy with the outcome? What should be done differently this time around?

I doubt I will be attending the remaining workshops, despite the free cookies. I believe that the 1994 plan has a lot of good ideas, and based on the first two workshops I am convinced our city planners are aware of what additional sustainability components need to be added. In my opinion, what really must change from the the 1994 plan is the language, which must to be as strong and determined as possible, and should outline what WILL happen and what SHALL happen in the City of Chico in the next 20 years, and not what should be simply "promoted" or "explored."

For me, my input at this point will be to write a letter to the General Plan Advisory Committee expressing these sentiments. Then I will vote for the city officials who I believe will best uphold the plan.

Posted by jmiller at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I hate buying clothes. It is part of the genetic coding of many guys.

But sadly, even the hardiest pair of jeans can only be worn and washed so many times.

I had two pair that had so many holes that I was risking being arrested for indecent exposure. My wife was pleading with me to buy some replacements.

With the "3-R" mantra in my head, I went not to the Chico Mall but instead to the Salvation Army, where I knew that plenty of options would be available to me.

I have purchased many thrift store Hawaiian t-shirts, but this was my first foray into clothes for the waist down.

For those that wish to follow in my pant legs, here is a word of advice: You will not be able to try on any of the pants in the story, so know your size ahead of time, and don't risk purchasing anything smaller than your size or anything bigger than 1" on the waist.

Though I know for many not being able to try on items to see if they fit right would be annoying, for me it was actually quite liberating as it meant spending less time in the store.

I made three purchases, all were the same waist size. When I got home, I found one was snug, one fit well, and the third fit with about 1/2" of breathing room.

At $6.50/pair, I think I did pretty well.

And I also purchased a Hawaiian t-shirt for less than the cost of a Starbuck's frappucino

I am searching for a location that will be able to recycle the material from my old pants. I have heard of some companies that take used blue jeans and use them as home insulation material. Does anyone have any information on where I might drop off my old jeans?

Posted by jmiller at 07:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)