Do you have an excess of eggplants and a shortage of tomatoes? A plethora of peaches but an appetite for apricots? Fill a bag with your extra home-grown edibles and SWAP them with another grower for something you don't have. No garden? No problem--wild blackberries, the fruit from neglected plum trees and the like are also welcome, but please avoid picking from plants growing close to major roads.

1ST Wednesday (7/1, 8/5, 9/2, 10/7) 6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. @ 434 W. 6th Ave

2ND and 3RD Wednesday's (6/10, 6/17, 7/8, 7/15, 8/12, 8/19, 9/9, 9/16)
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. @ the Chico Peace and Justice Center, 526 Broadway

4TH Wednesday (6/24, 7/22, 8/26, 9/23)
6:00 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.@ 570 Vallombrosa Way (between CARD and Sycamore Pool)

5TH Wednesday in JULY (7/29) 6:00 p.m. -- 8:00 p.m. @ the Satori Healing Center, 1180 Palmetto Avenue (backyard). Please do not park in front of the neighbors' houses.

5TH Wednesday in SEPTEMBER (9/30) 6:00 p.m. until dusk @ 373 E. 3rd Ave

AND. . . EVERY FRIDAY, Year Round! 2:00 p.m. - 6:00 pm. @ the Chapman Elementary School parking lot, in association with the Chapmantown Food and Fitness Festival.

The Gardeners' Swap Meet is a FREE weekly event sponsored by the Chico Food Network.

Reply to this post if you have any questions.

P.S.: I'll be bringing some apricots from the neighbor's tree this Wednesday.

In an effort to continue to reduce waste, we have replaced disposable baby-wipes with 6" cloth squares cut from old t-shirts and a simple spray bottle filled with water. We simply dampen each cloth with the spray bottle as needed. The used squares go into the washing machine along with the diapers. Alright, so it's not like we are getting rid of our cars, but the little things count too.

Speaking of cleaning up, I saw this neat contraption on a toilet tank the other day:

In a nutshell, once the toilet is flushed, the clean water that is used to refill the tank is first piped to the faucet for hand washing. The average American flushes the toilet five times a day. If each person also uses a quart of water to wash their hands after each flush, then this little doohicky has the potential to save over 400 gallons of water per person each year.

It's not a new invention, apparently they are pretty commonplace in Japan.

Hooray for Enloe, following in the footsteps of Kaiser and other hospitals, for establishing a weekly farmers market.

The market will run ever Tuesday from 2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m. from June 2 through September at the Enloe Conference Center's North Parking Lot, 1528 Esplanade (at 5th Avenue.)

Some are concerned that the market may adversely compete with Chico's other three farmers markets, but I disagree. I think both its location and day of the week will help to fill a void, rather than create competition.

So how do you get fresh local produce in Chico?

TUESDAY, 2 - 6 p.m.: Enloe Farmer's Market
WEDNESDAY, 7:30 am - noon: North Valley Shopping Center Farmer's Market
WEDNESDAY: 6 - 8 p.m.: Gardeners Swap Meet Free! (Locations vary, details soon!)
THURSDAY, 6 - 9 p.m: Thursday Night Farmers Market, Downtown
FRIDAY, 2 - 6 p.m.: Chapman School Farmers Market, Chapman Elementary School
SATURDAY, 7:30 a.m. - 1 p.m.: Saturday Farmers Market, 2nd & Wall Downtown

ALSO:
GRUB Community Supported Agriculture (food pickups at Dayton Road Wednesday evenings)
S&S and Chico Natural Foods both support local growers throughout the season.

The rebirth of the community garden at the Dorothy F. Johnson Center at the corner of E 18th Street and Beech Street is well underway, thanks to a $3000 grant from the Rose Foundation and the dedication of a number of community members and groups.

A work party is scheduled for tomorrow morning (Saturday, May 30) from 8 am to 10 am.

The garden is presently seeking volunteer community members who are interested in maintaining a single garden plot for the benefit of all. This is an educational garden for the community, by the community--ideally, individual garden beds will have different themes, such as a culinary herb plot, areas highlighting traditional Hmong and Hispanic vegetables, and heirloom varieties of plants, including the locally developed "Bidwell's Casaba Melon." Reply to this post or contact Ben Linzmeier at 715.570.9458 for more information.

Passersby are welcome to snack on the veggies (Anyone for a sweet cherry tomato?), so long as they save some for the next person.

A special thank you to local general contractor Robin Trenda and his crew for donating the labor to install a snazzy new fence for the garden. Meeks Lumber and Hardware pitched in building supplies at a reduced cost.

Community gardens face an uphill battle here, as these plots of communally-tended veggies tend to be more amenable to high-density urban areas (think Manhattan) rather than suburban Chico.

But that doesn't necessarily mean we should give up on the concept. There are plenty of apartment complexes in Chico whose residents might be interested in having a community garden within walking distance.

Or, we can simply change the model of what a we imagine a community garden to be, as with the Dorothy F. Johnson Center.

There is currently space for 4600 trees to be planted within Chico's public right-of-way, and thousands of more spots available in parking lots and on private residential property.

Those with homes in older areas of Chico can attest to the value of the tree canopy in both reducing the need for air conditioning as well as improving the general ambiance of the community.

The city lacks the funds to plant and maintain 4600 new trees, but that doesn't mean that folks can't take the plunge and plant their own trees in the space between the sidewalk and the street in front of their homes. I would recommend native valley oaks or California sycamores, however other good choices are presented on the Chico General Services website.

I have seen bicycle powered blenders, and bikes hooked up to generators, but I hadn't seen one of these.

Try a Google image search for "bicycle lawn mower" and you will find a few dozen other great photos.

I am not too pleased with my new exploration of the world of container gardening. I thought it would be convenient to be able to have fresh tomatoes, sweet peppers, and cucumbers growing on the sunny porch right outside my front door, and yes, I am only a couple weeks away from my first harvest, but I recognize that there is vast room for improvement.

Growing in two to five gallon containers of varying shapes and materials, the plants are water hogs. Or is it that the soil that I used--a mix of native dirt and mostly decomposed food waste compost--simply doesn't hold water very well? Or did I choose the wrong variety of tomato and cucumber? Or the wrong type of container?

As a self-described haphazard gardener (I cook the same way, sometimes with more success than others), I used the materials that I had on hand, and I think I will have moderate success. I also tried to duplicate the photo on the Renee's Seed Packet, which was a mistake (Where's the trellis? Is terra cotta the best choice?. . .)

For a more serious container garden, I would advocate for the large wine barrels, nursery-recommended potting soil, vegetable varieties bred specifically for containers, drip irrigation on a timer, and for the advanced horticulturalist, a means to capture and reuse water that drips out the bottom of the container.

Sometimes gardening isn't as simple as I would hope, but I'm working on it.

I have been remiss about writing posts this past week and a half, but that doesn't mean a lot hasn't been going on. Chico Bike Week ended today, I celebrated by biking with the babe down to the Saturday Market where I stuffed my little trailer to the gills with fresh cherries, mustard greens, eggs, and a dozen other items. Tomorrow we will make our first visit to Chaffin Family Orchards to see the place where our oranges, mandarins, and avocados are grown. Also, the second annual Kids in Creeks benefit show is at the El Rey theater this coming Sunday, May 17.

I also want to extend my gratitude to GRUB, which honored me earlier this month at their education benefit dinner for my continuing efforts to establish school and community garden programs in Chico. Richard Roth was also recognized for his work establishing cChaos and the Chapman Farmers Market, and the new GRUB outdoor kitchen was dedicated to the tireless energy of Dr. Mark Stemen.

Redwood seedlings have been planted in our honor.

We are considering investing in newer, more energy efficient systems for our home, including heating and air conditioning, photovoltaic systems, and solar hot water.

Understanding one's PG&E bill is a prerequisite for such any such decision, and my goal recently was to determine if I could use my energy bills to determine what percentage of our energy use was going towards heating and cooling the house. It turns out that for our particular heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) system at least, I could.

I started by logging onto our PG&E account (we have paperless bills) and utilizing their online tools to create and print two simple bar graphs showing our gas and electricity usage for 2008.

Our gas use went up dramatically during the four coldest months due to heating, and otherwise remained pretty constant.

Electricity use was highest during the summer months and formed a neat bell curve in the winter. Electricity use was lowest in the spring and fall.

I then made the assumption that primary reason for the seasonal fluctuation of our energy use is from heating the house in the winter (gas) and air conditioning in the summer (electricity). The bell curve on the electric bill in the winter was likely due to turning on the lights earlier in the evening during the shorter days. I would not be able to account for any seasonal fluctuations in gas use due to hot water heating or differing cooking patterns, but felt that was negligible as compared to the HVAC.

Now for some junior high school level math:

To determine gas use for heating, I found the total gas use for May through October--six months where I knew we were not using the heater--and subtracted this number from the total gas use for the six remaining months. This gave me a pretty good idea of the total amount of natural gas we were using for heating the house.

To determine electricity used for cooling the house, I found the total kilowatt hours used for the spring/fall months (April, May, October, November), and then subtracted this from total electricity used during the four months when were used the air conditioning (June, July, August, September). This gave me a rough estimate of the amount of electricity being used to cool our house during the summer.

The results, again based on the assumption that the major source of seasonal energy use fluctuation for our home is the HVAC, are as follows:

In 2008,
--25% of our total annual electricity use went towards cooling the house in the summer.
--66% of our total annual gas use went towards heating the house in the winter.
--42% of our annual PG&E bills went towards indoor temperature management. This is pretty much on target with the U.S average, but slightly higher than the rest of California Reason: I would guess that the majority of California's population lives in milder climates than Chico, coastal regions--think San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles, and San Diego--which require less heating and air conditioning.
--We used about 30% less electricity and 31% less gas than the average PG&E customer.

My daughter's first ever visit to a Chico Farmer's Market was by bike. With her buckled into a car seat that was firmly secured into the bike trailer, she gazed intently at the scenery as we cruised along at a modest 5-10 miles per hour.

We used the bike lane on Warner Avenue, but we had no choice in slowing down traffic on Third Street for a few blocks.

The debate continues as to how to approach future transportation needs in Chico. As far as downtown is concerned, I am actually pretty pleased with how things work at the moment, and feel safer biking downtown than in other parts of Chico. The lights on Main an Broadway are timed at about 22 mph, so rarely do I see vehicles going much faster then 25 mph. Also, with so much bike and pedestrian activity downtown, I feel that drivers tend to drive more defensively than in other parts of Chico.

While I like Karen Goodwin's bold strategy of exercising her right to bike on any road in Chico--which she hopes will lead to drivers in other parts of town being just as aware of cyclists--I am not ready to take the bike trailer on to Mangrove/Cohasset, Park, Nord,or East Avenue any time soon.

What does the future hold for transportation in Chico? City planners must balance the needs for people to have convenient access downtown businesses, residential through traffic making their way down the full lengths of Main or Broadway, bikes and vehicles sharing the same streets (with pedestrians crossing these streets), and a growing population to boot. Other parts of Chico have additional challenges.

If rising oil and gas prices are indeed in the future, then the problem of too many cars may solve itself. Even if some of these vehicles are replaced by hybrids or electric vehicles, at least they will likely tend to be smaller.

In the mean time, please be aware of me and my daughter slowing down traffic a bit. We have a right to the road too, and we don't always have the luxury of a bike lane.

I have attended too many events--luncheons, birthday parties, weddings, etc.--where paper plates and plastic cups were commonplace, and plastic forks half-eaten salads and empty beer bottles all ended up in the trash.

Mark Hererra of Chico is now offering an alternative, and he helps his costumers create zero-waste events at a competitive price by supplying glass mason jars to replace plastic cups, setting up recycling bins, and providing food waste compost containers that will route food scraps back to the soil rather than to the landfill.

Send Mark an email or give him a ring at (530) 894-8547 for more information.

I perhaps go through one roll of aluminum foil a year. I try to avoid using it in general--foil doesn't recycle well once it is covered with lasagna goo.

Last week I ran out, and was excited to try out the 100% recycled aluminum foil that I spotted at Chico Natural Foods.

Unfortunately, it had the durability of a gum wrapper.

Now that April is more than half over, I am reminded that it is Earth Month at CSU Chico, with numerous workshops and presentations being held every week.

The number of Earth Month activities has been scaled back a bit this year, but it still remains pretty ambitious. Every year much is written about how much hype is being given to Earth Day (or Earth Month), in that environmental awareness should not be relegated to a single date on the calendar. This year the popular environmental website Grist has gone as far as to promote that folks "Screw Earth Day," stating that "One day is for amateurs."

A bigger concern for me is that in Chico so many Earth Month events are centered around campus. The same is true about the annual Sustainability Conference held the first week of November.

I think it would be great to see some of these presentations, workshops, etc. infiltrating other elements of the Chico community. For example, Earth Month and Sustainability Conference organizers could outreach to local churches, community centers, coffee shops, and other public gathering places throughout Chico to host some of the activities associated with these awareness-building events. And these activities should be held in the evenings or on the weekends to maximize convenience.

The fact that this year's Chico EcoFest is being held at the Sierra Nevada Brewery on April 26 is a nice start, but I think event organizers can go even further in their efforts to bring eco-education opportunities to the community at large.

A lot of things caught my eye over the weekend:

TWO ANGRY MOMS
Advocates for Healthy School Communities invite the public to this weekend's community viewing of the documentary “Two Angry Moms,” a film of two moms that changed their school district's food choices, integrating healthy local farm fresh options. Discussion brainstorming to follow: Meet others who are willing to ask for and create changes in the food served in Chico's public schools. 4:00 p.m. Sunday April 19th at the Chico Grange.

SPEAKING OF LOCAL FOOD, I managed to take a 30 minute detour out of a Bay Area visit this past Sunday morning to stroll around The Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King Junior Middle School in Berkeley. This garden is easily twice the size of all of the school gardens in Chico put together, and the program integrates classroom lessons, feeds into the school lunch program, and even includes a chicken coop. Some might say that this bar too high for Chico, and besides, the whole project is backed by the Chez Panisse Foundation of Berkeley, a city where, despite the economic downturn, money still flows like the gourmet olive oil used in California Cuisine (which began at the Chez Panisse restaurant). My response: That olive oil probably originated from an orchard somewhere near Chico, a community surrounded on three sides by agriculture. Our students need to know first hand where their food comes from.

I WAS ALSO IMPRESSED BY this week's edition of the News and Review, which dedicated five pages to their "Recession Survival Guide" and included a number of smart tips for saving money and accessing resources.

Lastly, THE FARMING ROUNDTABLE series continues this Wednesday, April 15th from 6:30-8:30pm at the Chico Grange. This week's topic highlights funding opportunities to protect local food production.

For hikers interested in avoiding the mountain bikes and flying discs of Upper Bidwell Park, I would suggest checking out the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve which is now open to the general public. The reserve is just upstream from Bidwell Park, and is accessible from Highway 32. Browse their website for more detailed information.

Managed by the CSU, Chico Research Foundation, the 3950 acre site has limited trails, but abounds in wildness.

For those looking to utilize the Reserve for a school field trip or related educational purpose, contact the Research and Education Coordinator (bccereducation@csuchico.edu), (530) 342-1371.

A K-12 education program is presently being developed for the site, for Chico students this opportunity cannot come soon enough.