The second in a four-part series of free Urban Farming Workshops will take place this coming Wednesday evening, July 23 from 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. at the community garden at the corner of W. 16th Street and Normal. This workshop will highlight local urban farming efforts, including community gardens, school gardens, and GRUB's home-grown community supported agriculture (CSA) endeavor, and how people can get involved with each.

The presentations will accompany the regularly-scheduled Gardeners' Swap Meet.

Nani Teves did an excellent job putting together the series' first installment, "Backyard Chickens," at the Grange Hall a couple months back, and I anticipate more of the same this Wednesday.

I planted 4 squash plants last year, including 2 zucchini. It was plenty.
I wish I had remembered this fact a couple of months ago.
I now have 20 squash plants (though only 14 are really producing, which is still 10 more than necessary).

A sustainable squash garden? I don't think so. A man can't be sustained on squash alone.

Come by a Gardeners' Swap Meet on a Wednesday evening, and I will gladly share some with you, including "Bennings Green Tint," pictured above. (I planted 7 of them.)

ZUCCHINI PANCAKES

4 cups shredded zucchini
4 eggs
1/3-1/2 cup flour (wheat or white)
1/2 – 1 cup chunks of cheese (feta, cheddar, or gruyere)
1/2 – 1 cup chopped onion
plenty of black pepper
salt to taste

Mix together to create a batter, fry in the oil of your choice (olive or vegetable oil).

Serve with yogurt or sour cream.

But it turns out that for us to legally keep chickens in Chico, we may also have to write the city a pretty big check.

However, I also learned that areas zoned R1 ("Single Family Residential") require a use permit for keeping farm animals on the property. Incidentally, farm animals, including chickens, are not allowed at all in areas zoned R2, R3, R4, and RD. There is no use permit required for properties zoned RR or RS. (19.42.020, Table 4-2) Cut and paste "www.gic.csuchico.edu/projects/urban_parcel/chico/zoning.pdf" to find your zone. FYI This is a big file.

Determining the cost of a use permit was not as simple. I was told to check out the Planning Services Department Fee Schedule, but after being unable to locate a line item stating something like "Use Permit Fee for Fowl," I emailed the city.

The problem was that I was looking for a fee along the same lines as dog licenses--twenty, maybe thirty bucks, or perhaps a cool hundred on the outside.

The cost of a use permit for a "Single family owner occupied residence" is $1,363.

Our future chickens would need to lay 3271 eggs (273 dozen) to mitigate the cost of the permit (at farmers market price~$5/dozen), and that doesn't even begin to account for the cost of feed, the construction of a chicken coop, and the original purchase price of the fowl.

Though this permit would also allow us to keep other larger farm animals such as goats, pigs, and horses (if we had the space and the desire, which we don't), it doesn't make any sense that the fee isn't differentiated for the size of the animal. Also, unlike a dog license, a use permit stays with the property. If we were to move with our chickens to another property zoned R1, we would have to get a new permit.

Like growing one's own vegetables or biking to do errands, the ability to source protein from one's property in the form of fresh eggs makes both economic and environmental sense, and should not be discouraged by a budget-breaking use permit fee.

I will be writing a letter to the city to this effect.

Thank you to Associate City Planners Meredith Williams and Greg Redeker for their friendly, timely, and informative responses to my queries.

Chaffin Family Orchards will be offering its first ever jam making class on the evening of July 17th at Bacio Catering, 179 E. 19th Street in Chico. The cost to participate is $35 and you must bring with you 12 8oz canning jars. The fruit and all other supplies will be provided. Each person will go home with a full case of peach jam. Pre-pay and RSVP by 07/14/08 by calling Chris Kerston at 530-533-1676.

Preserving the pleasure of summer fruit for enjoyment in the winter months through canning has become a lost art. We are too used to the convenience of being able to hit up the supermarket for road-weary, fossil fuel-laden Mexican tomatoes in February, or for New Zealand peaches in November.

I would be curious (and perhaps a bit fearful) to compare the energy required by Trader Joe's to grow, harvest, process, and ship a year's worth of organic pasta sauce for a family of four vs. the energy required to do your own canning. Other factors that go into this comparison--which are near impossible to quantify and balance--include the joy one gains from gardening, the value one puts on being self-sufficient, the true cost of growing a tomatoes at home (seeds, time, water, tomato cage, etc.), the carbon footprint incurred by the industrial process of growing, canning, and transporting the product, and the value one places on the total time it takes grow and can a batch of tomatoes vs. the amount of time it would take to purchase a year's worth of pasta sauce from the market.

With a canning party, at least some of the economies of scale can be improved over doing it yourself, especially when using a kitchen geared to handle the process, though I doubt it would ever come close to the efficiency of an industrialized system.

It is when canning is looked upon as a pleasurable community-building event, comparable, perhaps, to la barbecue or a bowling outing that its true merits are realized. The difference is that you don't return from the bowling alley with a case full of home made jam.

Look for another canning event at the Chico Grange Hall this August.

Anyone else think a Community Canning Kitchen for Chico would be neat idea?

No, we are not getting rid of our Subaru, at least not yet. But we did just finish reading the new book Farewell My Subaru by Doug Fine. Fine tells his tale of his 2006 move to a 41 acre ranch in New Mexico in an attempt to reduce his carbon footprint and his addiction to oil. Along the way he installs solar panels and a solar hot water heater, parks his Subaru and replaces it with a diesel truck converted to run on veggie oil, and learns the challenges of raising goats, chickens, and vegetables in the harsh New Mexican environment.

Though a fun and inspiring read, Fine's off-the-grid lifestyle did not have as much relevancy for us as the two other books I have mentioned in this blog, Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle and Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma.

The bottom line is, rural New Mexico is a long way from suburban Chico. As such, one must recognize that the methods one uses to reduce their ecological impact will no doubt vary from location to location, with some strategies being more appropriate than others.

For example, while I agree that a veggie-powered pickup truck might indeed be the most sustainable form of transportation for someone who chooses to live in a rural setting, here at the edge of the Sacramento Valley I feel that biking, carpooling, and use of public transportation (and lobbying for improved public transportation) are the best bets.

It is also unlikely that it will ever make sense for us to install solar panels with the intent of living off the grid.

We are, however, hoping to get chickens in the next year or so.

Two years ago - before we moved to Chico - my wife and I used to do much of our grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. Why not? Plenty of organic options, relatively inexpensive, convenient locations all over California, and manageable-sized stores that don't require a map. The fact that 95% of the food came from mythical "Monrovia" didn't phase us.

Recently I made a run to TJ's and noticed how little I was purchasing. Since settling down in Chico, our food-purchasing habits have certainly changed. Here is a list of what we used to purchase frequently at TJ's, and where we buy these goods now:

-Flour, sugar, nuts, rice, cereal, pasta, olive oil, honey, liquid hand soap, shampoo, and tofu are now all bulk purchases at Chico Natural Foods or S & S. Of these, the rice, cereal, tofu, olive oil, honey, and many of the nuts are locally produced or grown.

-Bottled milk is also now purchased from S & S/Chico Natural; the glass bottle is returned for its redemption value.

-Most of the bread we now purchase is from the Farmers Market.

-My daily glass of TJ's frozen orange juice has been replaced by 1-2 fresh-squeezed glasses a week from Farmers Market oranges (when in season).

-Carrots and basil are also now Farmers Market buys, when in season.

-Hummus, when we have it, is now usually homemade.

-Cucumbers, fresh tomatoes, and frozen fruit (for making smoothies) are now all sourced from our backyard or from the Gardeners' Swap Meets.

-Avocados are only bought at TJ's when the label says they are from the U.S. (which indicates that they are probably grown in California).

-Bananas are no longer a regular part of our diet.

Here are the items that we still regularly buy from Trader Joe's. We look forward to reducing this list further and continuing to liberate ourselves from the Kingdom of Monrovia.

Ak-Mak Crackers
Avocados (organic, sourced from the U.S.)
Baked Blue Corn Tortilla Chips (organic)
Bar Soap
Brown Sugar (organic)
Butter (organic)
Canned Soup (organic)
Canned Tomatoes (organic)
Canned Vegetarian Chili (organic)
Crumbled Cheese (feta, blue, goat),
Laundry and dishwasher detergent
Mayonnaise (organic) and a few other condiments
Pasta sauce (organic)
Pepperjack cheese (organic)
Pine nuts (organic)
Sour Cream (organic)
Turkey Jerkey
Toothpaste
Whole Wheat and Corn Tortillas (organic)
Yogurt (organic)

We purchased our first bike trailer last week, a sparsely-used 10-year-old Burley in near perfect condition. It has a payload capacity of 100 lbs, which further reduces our need to drive a car. We paid $250 for it, just over half of what it costs new. With the help of commutesolutions.org, I calculated that if we use it in place of the Subaru Impreza for 379 miles then it will pay for itself, when personal, environmental, and social costs are all taken into account. Here is the math:

Direct Costs
Fuel (based on $4.55/gal, 25 mpg): 18.2¢/mile
Maintenance and Tires: 5.3¢/mile

Indirect Costs
Accidents (government-paid cleanup, lost economic activity, etc.): 4.6¢/mile
State and Local Construction, Improvements and Repair: 1.1¢/mile
State and Local Highway Maintenance and Operations: 0.6¢/mile
Parking (commercial and employer-paid, including government tax): 6.4¢/mile
Waste Disposal (highway cleanup, tire and oil removal): 0.3¢/mile
Air Pollution Damage (health costs, crops, trees, materials, etc.): 5.3¢/mile
External Resource Consumption Costs (economic trade and natural resource use): 3.2¢/mile
Road Noise (property value decrease and abatement): 1.1¢/mile
CO2 Reduction (motor vehicles only): 0.5¢/mile
Water Pollution and Hydrologic Impacts: 1.7¢/mile
Transportation Diversity and Equity: 0.7¢/mile
Barrier Effects on Pedestrians and Bicycles: 1.2¢/mile
Land Use Impact Costs: 7.4¢/mile
Roadway Land Value: 3.2¢/mile
Congestion Costs: 5.4¢/mile

Total Cost Per Mile: $0.66

Purchase price of bike trailer
divided by
Cost of operating a vehicle per mile
equals
Number of miles required to use my bike trailer in place of my car to offset purchase price

$250/$0.66 per mile = 378.8 miles

That's just under 8 miles a week for a year. I think we can handle it.

Last year this was a dirt bike path that I used last year to cross a field to get over to the North Valley Plaza. It has been reincarnated as a red-stained band of asphalt bisecting the 3-month-old Chico Courtyard Apartments complex on Pillsbury Road.

When I first saw the prefab complex being built I had my doubts, but I don't think it looks half bad. For bike-owners living in the apartments, the location is pretty awesome. It would have been better if the parking could have been situated on the backside of the buildings to avoid the car-bike conflict, but with the clearly marked bike route and two generous bike racks the developers do give more respect to the bikes than 99% of apartment complexes that I have seen.

Senseless

Yep, this is what a vandal did last week to eight 1-year-old almond trees planted in the orchard north of 8th Avenue. I highlight it here because I believe these remnant orchards add character and ambiance to our neighborhoods. Anyone with information about the incident should contact the Chico police department. Where is Treebeard when you need him, or perhaps one of his apple-throwing buddies from the Wizard of Oz?

We were cold this past January. Our HVAC system requires electricity as well as gas to heat the house, so when the power went out, the temperature in our place dropped to 57 degrees. The previous owners had the fireplace and chimney set up for a fireplace insert, but the 400 lb. non-EPA certified insert was gathering rust in the backyard. So neither the fireplace nor the insert were usable. We spent much of the power outage in the kitchen, where the process of making meals over the gas stove helped keep us warm.

Fast forward to today, when we attended a meeting of the Butte County Air Quality Management District Board of Directors meeting at Chico City Hall. On the agenda was the consideration of staff recommendations to reduce particulate matter pollution--"P.M. 2.5" (fine particles of pollution less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter). The major sources of these particles are from vehicle use in the summer and from the burning of backyard burn piles and the use of wood stoves in the winter. As a result, Chico has the third worst air quality in the state behind Los Angeles and the southern San Joaquin Valley.

The staff recommendations to solve this problem included increasing public education efforts, enhancing the voluntary "Don't Light Tonight" program, and requiring home or business remodel projects of over $25,000 to replace or remove existing non-certified wood burning devices.

I don't think this won't be enough to make our air cleaner.

However, at $2500-$3000 each, requiring that everyone replace their old stoves with new , cleaner-burning EPA certified stoves is not realistic either. Besides, they still pollute. It is also not fair to tell people not to use a wood stove to heat their homes is this is their only means of staying warm.

What about gas stoves?--Well, then you are burning a fossil fuel. An electric space heater?--Now you are tied back to the grid (think power outage), and 43% of the electricity sold by PG&E comes from burning natural gas anyway.

So wood isn't such a bad choice. It cheap and renewable and effective. But it does pollute.

So is there a better way to deal with this issue that doesn't require shelling out $3000? I think so. I think that if we have the technology to cram 500 songs and a rechargeable battery into a device no bigger than a fig newton, they should be able to come up with a filter for a residential chimney. But they don't seem to exist.

Another solution is to require or subsidize programs to improve home insulation to reduce the number of hours a wood stove is required to be in operation. How much air pollution can be prevented with the effective use of $200 worth of weather stripping?. Also, people should be encouraged use a wood stove to heat only the smallest portion of their house necessary, such as a living room, rather than the entire home.

The big question is, how can we balance our right to clean air and our right to a heated living space? How much is each worth? Who should pay?

In the end, this past Monday we did write a large check for a slightly used EPA certified fireplace insert, which we will use sparingly as needed over the life of our home. This purchase came in the midst of forest fires that are causing some of worst air pollution in Chico's history. If irony was money. . .

Where do you begin in making a community more sustainable? I would suggest that the path to sustainability goes through the stomach--So starting a farmers' market is a pretty good first step.

But it is also not an easy thing to do.

Richard Roth, founder of the new nonprofit cChaos, Collaboratively Creating Health Access Opportunities and Services, has created Oroville's first farmers' market at the El Medio Fire Station. It is hoped to run year-round on Thursdays from 11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. at the corner of Myers and D Streets.

The market is equipped with an EBT Nutrition Assistance POS device, and also accepts WIC coupons.

Heat, wind, and smoke from wildfires are giving this market a rough start in its first few weeks. If you live in Oroville, are passing through, or have friends, family, or other connections there, spread the word about this valuable new asset to the community.

We were able to stop by this past Thursday on the way back from Sacramento and grabbed some cucumbers, bell peppers, and onion starts for the grand total of $4 bucks. I found space to plant the onions at the base of some of my tomato plants. I read that the onions are good companion plants for the 'maters.

We are now into our second year of being homeowners in Chico, and can start seeing how some of our sustainability efforts are panning out in terms of our water bills.

The Good News

Even though this year the garden has quadrupled in size and we are babying 27 young fruit trees that we planted over the winter, our water use was down 19% in April as compared with this time last year, and 12.5% in May. The biggest reasons for this difference has been the elimination of the front lawn, the partial neglect of the backyard lawn, and the use of drip irrigation for many of the vegetables which allows for more efficient watering.

The Bad News

My wife and I used an average of 424 gallons of water every day last year, enough to fill just over 7 wine barrels every 24 hours. A huge percentage of this was used on the lawn and veggies in the summer. For example, in June of 2007 we averaged 981 gallons per day (!!!), while this past February we averaged only 123 gallons per day. In a recent letter to the editor, Chico resident Gene Lucas writes that the average California home uses 471 gallons per day. Lucas goes on to recommend that Chicoans strive to achieve less than 300 gallons per day. I concur, but at our house, at least, we have a ways to go.

Our hope is that as the trees and landscaping mature and their roots deepen, the will be able to do a better job fending for themselves in the summer. Also, we plan to continue to add landscape features such as swales and build plant communities that shade the ground from the sun, thus enabling the ground to hold winter rainwater later into the summer.

I will also plant fewer water-sucking zucchini next year.

Chico's first annual Green Baby Expo will take place this Saturday, June 21 from 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. at the Silver Dollar Fairgrounds. Admission is $5 per family and comes with a complimentary ChicoBag ($5 value) plus assorted goodies and coupons.

But more importantly, the Green Baby Expo promises to serve as a resource for anyone wishing to raise their child in a sustainable manner, with information available on everything from home birth options to green diapers and organic cotton baby clothing. There will be plenty of activities for young children as well.

Bees

I have taken some time to really notice the bees going about their business around my yard. I highly recommend it. I am amazed not only in their numbers--they are especially attracted to lavender and catmint (Nepeta sp.) blooms--but also in their diversity.

I cannot tell the difference between some of the native bees and European honeybees, but I would wager that there are at least a dozen or so species that visit my garden, based on subtle variations of striping, color, and shading.

A rainbow of flowers including daisies, lilies, bindweed, sunflowers, yarrow, poppies, and now squash blooms also add to the diversity of pollinators in the yard, with multiple honeybees, bumblebees, wasps, hoverflies, beeflies, hummingbirds, and butterflies. Not only do certain species prefer certain plants, but also different times of day. The giant black carpenter bee ventures out to the larkspur in the late afternoon, while moths come by the lavender once the sun has set to pick over whatever pollen scraps were left behind by the honeybees.

I bring my head inches to the bees in fascination, wonder, and appreciation. I have not been stung.

Belligerence

There are fewer bees over at the garden at McManus Elementary, which was hit yet again by vandals who pulled up plants, added graffiti to newly donated benches, and kicked in the wire mesh on the new compost bins.

On May 29 I wrote that I was "sad and frustrated." Now I am angry. Part of me wants to camp out day and night and catch the vandals, and see them do community service. But I actually don't live in that part of town, so part of me wants to blame the community for not keeping a watchful eye over their school. But what about the police? What about the school district? What about those who are responsible for the vandals and their upbringing--parents, teachers, the greater Chico community?

But blame does not rebuild a school garden.

When they say that war, violence, and poverty are sustainability issues, I am sure many people think of faraway places such as India, or Darfur, or the Middle East.

But violence and vandalism in our own communities are sustainability issues too.

The evidence is at McManus Elementary, where callous footprints have been sunk deep into the garden beds, in the place where seedlings should be sprouting.

The standard pair of men's undies has four "openings," shall we say. My wife was noticing that some of mine had six, or eight, or ten, and said it was time to get some new underwear. Perhaps I was overwhelming her with too much of a good thing.

I inquired about purchasing underwear at the same stores that I had been so successful in supplying me with blue Hawaiian shirts: the thrift sto-

She said no. I deserved new underwear.

I went online to see if I could support a company that is manufacturing organic cotton undies. There are plenty of eco-undie choices out there, but the best "deal" I could find for organic underwear was $16 each, or $44 for a packet of three, plus shipping and handling. Could I find organic undies that originated in California,the second-largest cotton producing state in the nation? No. The closest could get was Rawganique.com which sells "Clean Undies," made in Canada from U.S. cotton. They run $21 each.

At Mervyn's, basic cotton undies were on sale for $18 for a packet of 6, including tax.

Organic food commonly costs twice as much as conventional. But organic undies would cost me almost five times as much.

But shouldn't what I put on my body be as important as what I put into it? Isn't showing support for organic cotton growers important too? Haven't I read that it takes 1/3 of a pound of chemicals (pesticides + fertilizers) to produce enough conventionally grown, genetically modified cotton to make one t-shirt?

In the end, I bought two 6-packs from Mervyns, and saved $54 than if I had bought that same amount organic. My justification was that there are better ways to stretch the eco-value of my money.

But my choice nags me.

Perhaps I should be going commando.

Last Wednesday's inaugural Gardeners' Swap Meet at The Cause was a lot of fun. Traded items included home-grown lettuce, walnuts, cherries, grapefruit, plant starts, apricots, onions, jam, mint, and the first summer squash of the season.

This Wednesday's Swap Meet is a twin billing, with veggies being swapped from 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. at the Chico Community Children's Center at 2224 Elm Street in Mulberry neighborhood of Chapman Town, and then AGAIN from 6 p.m. - 8 p.m. at the Chico Grange Hall at 2775 Old Nord Avenue at Rodeo Avenue.

Swap meets will occurs every second Wednesday of the month at these times and locations though mid-October.

For the complete Gardeners' Swap Meet schedule (produce is swapped every Wednesday evening), go to www.chicofoodnetwork.org.

Print it out and stick it on the fridge.

P.S. I ate my first home-grown tomato of the season last Wednesday, a sungold cherry tomato. It will be a while before I have enough to contribute some to the Swap Meets.