I have been enjoying my first harvests from my Backyard Harvest garden. Grayce has been doing a wonderful job ! Here are a few pics of how the garden looked a week ago:

( More pics and stuff )

Here's a brilliant idea:

Using Veggie Trader is free and easy. It works like classified advertising. You post a listing describing the excess produce you have and what you'd like in return, and then you wait for a response...

Or, if you're looking for local produce, you simply enter your zip code and see what your neighbors have available. You can also post specific produce you’re looking for in our Wanted section and see which of your neighbors answers your request.

I've signed up, and it looks like I'm the first with active listings from the Twin Cities. This site is brand new, I think it's only been up a week or so. It's run out of California, and while they're working on Canada, right now it's only the USA.

(Veggie Trader via Homegrown Evolution)

Saturday afternoon, hungermtngirl and I went to a growing in winter greenhouses presentation put on by the Land Stewardship Project and Carol Ford and Chuck Waibel, Garden Goddess CSA. They run a winter CSA out of their greenhouse in western Minnesota, providing fresh greens for 18 families all through the winter.

Oh, wow! We came out of the session so enthused. So many ideas! And I introduced hungermtngirl to one of her neighbors. =) They put their heads together and came up with some great ideas on local food in Powderhorn Park.

Interestingly enough, I knew most of the physical details for building a 4-season greenhouse, but there were some great tips from those who have gone before. The second part of the presentation was about the business, and local farming in general. There I learned a lot, and really, for the first time, thought that I might be able to make a run at an AP business. Especially in winter.

It was a wonderful day. I got in a plug for aquaponics, and more than a few people were interested in the idea, and so I told them (and now I'm telling you) that

I'm presenting Aquaponics 101 at the
2009 Community Garden Spring Resource Fair.
On March 28th, 2009.

The presentation time is 75 minutes, and I'll show pics of systems around the world (if we get a screen/projector), have a small working AP system to demo, and answer any questions I can.

This is going to be a great fair. There will be presentations on composting, uban chickens (and goats?) and many other things I don't even know about yet. I think the keynote is going to be by one of the organizers of Backyard Harvest, about which I posted the other day.

It's all coming together...

Now that the seed catalogs are starting to arrive, would any other Twin Cities folk be interested in pooling our resources to buy seeds (and trade the seeds we already have)?

I'm mostly a food-seed person, but am also interested in various companion plants and soil builders.

I'd be happy to organize...

Help us build a sustainable (& delicious) local food
system one backyard at a time!

Tonight I went to an organizational meeting for the new startup backyard garden-based CSA in town. Way cool. They create the garden beds, and farm it, and you get the produce. Since it's a CSA, the landowner pays, of course, but once it gets started, I'm sure it'll be comparable to a "normal" CSA (startup will be more expensive).

They're actively looking for customers. They'd like a 10'x10' (size, not necessarily shape) spot in a yard with 6 hours of sunlight, but I'm sure they're flexible.

See the link above for more info, including a PDF flyer.

I can answer a few questions, but they, obviously, are the best source of info!

Please, pass it on.

Well, actually from Dec 10th, I'm still catching up:

"Rather than give money to bail out the car industry in order to enable them to keep making cars, that money should be tied to regearing the industry to producing wind turbines, solar panels and low energy forms of transportation.

From 9%, the Wizard of Oz and Sex", a Transition Culture blog.

From "Why Cityfarming? Because It’s Fair"

The last decade has seen sustainability principles begin to redefine the way we do business - as the success of Somerton Tanks proves, even growing food in the city can be profitable.
...
No doubt, the inner city could use a farm or two. Gentrification may have transformed much of the urban landscape into a sea of Starbucks and lofts, but many neighborhoods remain ignored by creative-class types and municipal services alike. In these areas, decades-long patterns of disinvestment have led to the creation of “food deserts”: where the only sustenance around comes from overpriced corner stores and unhealthy fast-food chains."

Plans within plans within plans...

Green Meme #2
Guidelines:

1) Link to Green Meme Bloggers.
2) Link back to whoever tagged you. (no need to wait to be tagged!)
-- no one tagged me. I saw this on another blog.
3) Include meme number
4) Include these guidelines in your post
5) Tag 3 other green bloggers.
-- I don't tag. I usually think it's rude. However, if any of my 2 readers would like to self-tag... :-D

Green Meme #2

1. Do you use baking soda toothpaste or baking soda shampoo? If not, would you consider it?
-- I alternate toothpaste, between a baking soda based brand, a dry-mouth fighting brand, and a tooth powder I take traveling. One less liquid!
-- I'd never even heard of baking soda shampoo. I know about using baking soda between washes, but not as shampoo. A comment here says "get the really fine grained lab quality stuff, because arm&hammer just doesn't work as well." One more thing to find...

2. Do you make any home cleaning products?
-- I'm starting to use vinegar and baking soda. I'm going to use up what I have first, though. But I don't have much: some comet, some spic&span, some windex.

3. What is your top green issue at the moment?
-- I can't just say "The environment?" Well, then, switching the world (but specifically the U.S) economies to green / renewable energy.

4. Given unlimited cash, what is on your fantasy green wishlist?
-- T. Boone Picken's-type unlimited cash? Ooh, tough question. There is so much. I think the most important thing, though, is to get the electric grid up to a state where it can actually move renewable-generated electricity (wind, solar, geothermal etc) to the places it's needed. It's all well and good to carpet the West with turbines, but if we can't get that energy out East, what good is it?

5. Have you implemented any new green act/behaviour/product this month?
-- Well, today is Dec 1st. Not much done today. :-D Otherwise, in Nov I continued with the aquaponics, composting, vermicomposting and planning for more. I've joined a bunch of permaculture-type e-mail lists, and am learning as fast as I can.
-- Oh, wait. I bought a greenhouse, and went to the Permaculture workshop. Do those count?

So I just went and bought a greenhouse:


(click through for a larger size pic)

I had been planning on building my own greenhouse, but pricing everything out it really wasn't reasonable. This greenhouse has double-walled polycarb panels, and while the greenhouse itself isn't all that sturdy, it can be made so for a few hundred bucks. And since it cost me less than $600, and the material, solexx or some similar polycarb, alone would have cost that much had I bought it elsewhere, I think it's a good deal.

I've heard really good things about this greenhouse (suitably hardened) from other norhern gardeners and aquaponicists. And while it's not hard at all to put up some plastic over a cattle panel or PVC frame, I want a greenhouse I can use for most, if not the whole, year.

How the heck am I going to do that in Minnesota? Well, I'm learning a few things.
First, I'm going to make it a pit greenhouse. Dig down 4 feet or so, to get some thermal mass advantage. I'll also build a solar water heater (they work even in winter), and hopefully bury a bunch of tubes all around my yard to make a poor-man's geothermal heat pump. Also, compost, and chicken/ducks give off heat..

Check out this guy who grows citrus all winter long in Nebraska.

Bringing the greehouse home:

From Aquaponics

From Aquaponics

Obviously building it will have to wait until spring...

The permaculture workshop, put on by the Permaculture Research Institute, Cold Climate went well, except for a day spent in bad chairs. =) It was held at MCAD, which has nice facilities, but we were in a kinda open area with roll-y chairs and tables. I should start doing my back exercises again...

I had read most of the basics of permaculture already, but it was really cool to talk to people practicing it in this environment. And tomorrow we're during a homestead south of the cities which is using permaculture, and most excitingly, has a geothermal heat pump! I've not seen one in person before.

It was also great to meet so many permaculture/slow food folks. Infiltrating that community has been taking me a bit longer than I expected (but given my introvertism, not that surprising). Definitely a good investment!

I also ended up with an extra copy of "An Introduction to Permaculture" so if anyone would like to borrow a copy...