Transition Whatcom

Garden News 8.17 & 8.17 - via Shannon & via Sustainable Connections announcements....

EVENTS:

Cloud Mountain Farm Workshops

Using Tunnels and Hoop houses for Productive Gardening
August 22, 10:30-Noon
You can grow great tomatoes and peppers in the Pacific Northwest! Use of high tunnels and hoop houses can bring you success in crops that often fail out in the open. We'll discuss hoop house construction, planting, pruning and training, and management issues.


Preserving the Harvest
August 22, 1:30-3:00
Don't let your garden bounty go to waste! We'll discuss canning, drying and freezing of different fruit and vegetable crops.
Workshops are free; no registration required. For more information, call 360.966.5859.
Cloud Mountain Farm
6906 Goodwin Rd
Everson
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Garden Spot Nursery Classes- No class fee
August 22 - Small Water Gardens!

Create a water feature that sounds cool and looks cool. Marcy will show you how. Special discounts. No class Fee.
Please call 360.676.5480 or visit www.garden-spot.com to Register!
Saturdays 9:00am
Garden Spot Nursery 900 Alabama St
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Bakerview Nursery Free Gardening Seminars

Landscape Design Basics:
Whether you've just bought a home or have simply never landscaped your yard, this class is for you. We'll show what to consider before you get started, local gardening information, soil amendments, deer repellent and much more.
Saturday, August 29th, 10:00 am
Please call us to pre-register for seminars.
(360) 676-0400
Bakerview Nursery & Garden Center
601 W Holly St
945 E Bakerview Rd


Common Threads Farm Fundraiser
Event Date: 9/11/2009

Come to Boundary Bay for dinner, drinks, and music to benefit the education-based farm, Common Threads. Common Threads Farm is a non-profit farm offering educational camps, classes, and workshops for youth and adults in Whatcom County. Located on Lummi Island, Common Threads is an off-the-grid farm focused on education, nutrition, and sustainability. Come learn more about Common Threads and help support our efforts at Boundary Bay! Live music provided by The Elements. More bands to be announced soon!


Harvest Festival
Event Date: 9/12/2009
Harvest Celebration at Common Threads Farm! Stop by any time between 12 and 4 on September 12 to press cider, visit with animals, harvest potatoes, participate in solar powered toy car races, and more!


Center for Local Self Reliance Silent Auction and party
Event Date: 9/12/2009
The Center for Local Self Reliance is hosting a silent auction and party to benefit their efforts to revitalize the Caretakers House & Gardens at Fairhaven Park\'s former Rose Garden. Food and music will be served. If you would like to volunteer to help, or would like donate items for the auction Contact Jean Kroll : artiseverywhere@yahoo.com



FRESH the Movie

This is a summer of good movies about food, as Food, Inc. hit the theatres in July and Nourish will be coming out soon. We're looking forward to a seeing FRESH, directed by ana Sofia joanes, this summer in true independent media style. joanes shows us how a sustainable food system operates, by focusing on personal and community stories of change.

To that end, the Skagit Valley Food Co-op is hosting an evening screening of FRESH in conjunction with Skagit's Eat Local Week (September 14-20), and proceeds from your $3 ticket donation will go to benefit Skagit Food Share Alliance, to support local agriculture and end local hunger. (www.skagitcap.org/sfsa.htm)
Wednesday, September 16th 7:30pm
Skagit Food Co-op, room 309
www.freshthemovie.com



Washington State Permaculture Convergence
Event Date: 9/18/2009

Please join us for the Second Annual Washington State Permaculture Convergence,September 18-20, 2009 to be held at Sahale Learning Center near Belfair, Washington - on the north shore of beautiful Hood Canal. We will feature a weekend of networking, workshops and conversations with friends and peers among Washington state\'s permaculture community. Interested members of the public are also warmly welcome to attend. Together we will share information, solutions, inspirations, and insights! Workshops on such diverse subjects as biochar creation and usage, Ecovillage development, local currency systems, forest garden systems, large-scale installations, Brown\'s gas, water catchment, green roofs, the Transition Town and Anastasia movements, and other topics of interest for seasoned practitioners and newcomers alike. Attendance fees are $100-$70 on a sliding scale, this includes camping and delicious home-cooked meals. To keep costs down we are again asking participants to bring food (hopefully from their own gardens) to contribute to the communal kitchen. There are work/trade opportunities available; please call 360-820-8586 or e-mail permaculture@earthlink.net for current availability. Carpooling is highly encouraged.




Backyard Poultry 101
Event Date: 10/10/2009
Learn everything you know to safely and enjoyably raise chickens in your backyard. 1-4 p.m.

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EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY:

Northwest Agriculture Business Center is Hiring
Project Manager, Northwest Agriculture Business Center (NABC).
NABC provides Northwest Washington farmers with skills and resources required to profitably and efficiently supply their products to consumers, retailers, wholesalers, foodservice operators and food manufacturers.

NABC is working to increase opportunities for farmers in Whatcom County to process and market their production. The Project Manger will work with a collaboration of Whatcom County farmers to develop necessary infrastructure to increase the sale of local farm products to Whatcom County schools and other local consumers. The primary responsibility of this position is facilitating the formation of a Whatcom farmer.s local food cooperative.

Activities will include coordinating with other organizations to build on current successes; conducting market research, completing a needs assessment of potential members, financial assessment for the proposed cooperative, summarizing feasibility conclusions and recommendations, and assisting in the completion of a formal business plan for the cooperative.

Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Desired starting date is September 1, 2009.
Submit a resume, letter of application, and a list of references to:
David Bauermeister, Executive Director
Northwest Agriculture Business Center
419 South 1st Street, Suite 200
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
Phone: 360-336-3727
email: David@AgBizCenter.org
www.AgBizCenter.org and www.PSFN.org
View the full job description


ONLINE RESOURCES:


SPEAKING OF SEED SAVING...

Here are video of various types of seed saving...

http://mapofsaltspring.com/raven/

(thanks, Dan)



COMMUNITY LOCAL ECOMOMY & TRADING!

Check Out Frugally Free

Bellingham.frugallyfree.com is a website that is similar to Craigslist.com. It is designed to be a community bulletin board to post and find salvageable items; everything is free. It is based on the colloquial "one man's trash is another man's treasure". The idea is to promote reuse and save a community member money for items they would otherwise have to purchase. The site also saves people disposal costs and time that would be spent driving to donation centers such as the Restore and Goodwill.


FrugallyFree.com offers Whatcom County business owners free advertising in the form of online coupons or promotion codes. Promotion codes are designed for online retailers and printable coupons are designed for brick and motor businesses. Ten percent of the profits are donated to the Whatcom Humane Society.

NEWS - POLITICS:

Congressman Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) introduces the Community Gardens Act of 2009

Today, Congressman Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) introduced the Community Gardens Act of 2009 with Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) The bill creates a grant program within the U.S. Department of Agriculture to compensate community groups for up to eighty percent of the costs associated with starting and maintaining a community garden.

"Locally, the City of Seattle's Department of Neighborhoods maintains almost two thousand community garden plots on 23 acres of land, which serve almost four thousand urban gardeners in the area," said Inslee. "With this legislation, we can help programs like the ones in Seattle and at 21 Acres in Woodinville, and we can expand opportunities to all American households to share in the numerous benefits of local gardening."
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SUSTAINABILITY OF THE WEEK

Urine Luck! Pee May Be the Fuel of the Future
Scientists at Ohio University have stumbled on a major break-through that could be the key to bringing hydrogen fuel cells into wide-spread use. Scientists discovered that placing a nickel-based electrode in a pool of urine and applying a small electrical current produces hydrogen gas. "One cow can provide enough energy to supply hot water for 19 houses," Ohio University professor Gerardine Botte said of the discovery. The scientists are hoping to make commercial version of the technology available by next year
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31805166/
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via Llyn Doremus, Mt. Baker Chapter of the Sierra Club.......
The Center for Neighborhood Technology Green Values™ Calculator (GVC) compares green infrastructure performance, costs, and benefits to conventional stormwater practices at the site and neighborhood scales. The tool provides a quantified analysis of green infrastructure environmental benefits including reduced runoff volume and maintenance savings, in addition to carbon sequestration, reduced energy use, and groundwater recharge. The goal of the tool is to encourage communities to adopt green infrastructure as the preferred method for stormwater management by demonstrating the ecological and economic gains that result from implementing green infrastructure practices. The GVC uses precipitation data from anywhere in the U.S. and provides a range of runoff reduction goals that represent current innovation in stormwater regulation around the country. The National GVC can work in all U.S. communities because the user specifies the site location, and the calculations thereafter use precipitation data from the nearest National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) weather station. Calculator users can also choose from a list of regulations aimed at achieving varied levels of runoff volume reduction chosen from exemplary communities around the country. The specified runoff reduction goal sets a standard against which a selected suite of management practices performs in relation to that standard. Users may also define the predevelopment conditions of their site.

http://greenvalues.cnt.org/national/



Quote of Note
via Inspiration Farm website...

"Raise soil organic matter by one tenth of one percentage point a year, and we peg CO2 levels as of today. Raise them by 1.6% points and we get totally back to normal. Global warming is then finished."

Allan Yeomans 1994 (inventor of the Yeoman Plow)

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Replies to This Discussion

Many of us local gardeners are sharing our events news & resources with our friend & neighbor Shannon Maris who then compiles them once a week or so and emails them out to us all.
Its called the Garden E-News.
If you would like to be part of the collection of gardener/farmer networkers sharing information & resources, please request Shannon to put you on her email list.
You are also invited to click the "+ Join Organic..." on this site and join us in sharing here.
You can find Shannon under this ning site member list.

Remember to message Shannon your email as the Garden E-News is sent out from her email not from this site.
(If you use the message format on the ning, that info will not be viewed by everyone)
Looking forward to getting together at a future garden-work trade event...
Request Jeff W. for info on that!

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