Donate to the Portland Fruit Tree Project
In 2009 over 14,798 lbs of fruit was collected and given to those in need, saving it from falling and going to waste on the sidewalks. The Portland Fruit Tree Project is an amazing idea that both helps fight hunger and waste, while increasing urban sustainability in a very green way. The PFTP collects fruit from trees in the city that would otherwise go to waste, all fruit is either in a public space or has been donated by the property owner. No more walking down the street to find perfectly good plums rotting and squishing underfoot from where they fell, now the little old lady with too many plums can have volunteers collect them from the trees in her yard and then then take them to the food bank. Fresh fruit and vegetables are critical to a healthy diet, yet often are unavailable at a reasonable cost which prevents lower income families from enjoying fresh food. With the Portland Fruit Tree Project, all of the food is used and used by those who need it most.
Now through December 31st, 2009 the Portland Fruit Tree Project has a generous anonymous donor that will do a 50% match on whatever donations are collected. That means that your donation now can make 50% more of an impact to the hungry of the Portland area. You can also Gift a donation. The donation goes to the project and they send a holiday gift card to the person who you gifted it for thanking them for the donation in their name. Give the gift of local healthy food to the hungry and urban sustainability for us all to share.
To donate to this amazing project write a check to or donate online:
The Portland Fruit Tree Project
1912 NE Killingsworth St
Portland, OR 97211
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A new way to grow food…
The folks at Omega Garden have created a few different machines that are going to change the way we think about a greenhouse. Rotating cylinders with a light in the center and plants growing all along the inner side, watered automatically all day long by a controlled gravity drip. Omega has created models for home/small business and another model for high scale greenhouse operations. With the commercial sized one you can get 6,600 sq ft of growing space while only using 100 sq ft of floor space.
Currently, the worlds population growth is far outstripping our ability to produce food. Already there are about a billion people in the world that do not always have enough to eat. Whats worse is that our government has not caught on with the times and still subsidizes poor factory farming practices that destroy the land, and use far more water while polluting everything around it with pesticides and animal by products. With the Omega garden and other smarter hydroponic methods of growing food, water use is reduced up to 99% because the water is not lost into the ground and can be recycled. Furthermore, the machinery is enclosed indoors so the water loss from natural plant transpiration and evaporation are eliminated along with the bugs and the need for pesticides.
The Omega garden goes even further in the conservation than other hydroponic methods as they conserve light energy through the cylindrical design. Normally, a light would have to be above the plants, and have a reflector above it so that the light moving upwards away from the light would not be lost. With the cylindrical design, the light is in the center and the plants are growing all around it, giving it 360 degrees of effectiveness. Using this design, you can get a pound of basil for .38KWh (about 3-5x the yield of standard methods).
With water and farmable land becoming scarcer and our population growing, its ideas like this that are going to keep us from starving……See more at Ecofriend
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The Muddy Boot Festival 2009: A Soulful Celebration of Sustainable Living
Holy cow, the Muddy Boot Festival is almost here! Now in its fourth year, this lively, three-day outdoor festival celebrates all manners of sustainable living in Portland, so get your tickets now and show your support for making our town greener and cleaner than ever before.
Highly recommended is Friday’s keynote address by environmental activist and prolific author Bill McKibben, whose work deals with how local communities can come together to combat global climate change. McKibben wants everyone to know about “the most important number in the world,” 350. As in 350 parts per million, the safe upper limit ofCO2 in the atmosphere as identified by scientists (see 350.org). The talk begins 7 pm on Friday, September 11. Tickets are $20/general and $15/students in advance; $25 at the door.
Muddy Boot continues through the weekend. Get fed on organic food and drink in the marketplace. Get informed via workshops and panel discussions with local sustainability advocates (the list of speakers reads like a who’s who of pdx green experts). Get down to live music by awesome local bands. Kids entertainment, too. Puppets! Recycled arts and crafts! Did I mention March Fourth Marching Band will be there Saturday night? Sounds like some good, wholesome fun for all.
Location: St. Philip Neri Church, 2408 SE 16th Avenue
Click here for the full schedule.
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Portland Flocks to Hear Joel Salatin Speak
Today, August 13 is likely your best opportunity to see the gregarious and visionary Joel Salatin speak in person. Founder of Polyface Farm, Salatin is a small-scale organic farmer whose pasture-based method of raising meat and eggs and selling them directly to consumers offers an ecological alternative to polluting, diseased, anonymous, corn-fed animal products. He will be giving a talk tonight from 7 to 9 pm at Friendship Masonic Center. Proceeds benefit Hollywood Farmers Market.
Salatin is worth seeking out as has a unique gift for communicating how urgently we need to overhaul our food production systems, all the way from the farm to your table. According to Salatin, he is “…in the redemption business: healing the land, healing the food, healing the economy, and healing the culture” (from his farm’s website). Salatin’s work has been popularized by Michael Pollan in The Omnivores Dilemma. He was also featured in the movie Food, Inc..
In addition to being a slow food darling, Salatin’s written quite a few books of his own, including the following:
Pastured Poultry Profit$: Describes the how and why one would keep chickens on pasture. If you keep chickens at all (even a flock of three like I do) this one is a real eye-opener. I love the eggmobile!
Everything I Want to Do Is Illegal: A scathing critique of agricultural regulations (and government regulations in general) that have been designed without regard for the small-scale, organic grower.
The Lecture:
Friendship Masonic Center from 7 to 9 pm today, August 13. 5626 NE Alameda Street (57th and NE Sandy Blvd.) $25.
A benefit for Hollywood Farmers Market. Get tickets at the the Hollywood Farmers Market this Saturday from 8 am - 1 pm or by contacting the Market at 503-709-7403 or tickets@hollywoodfarmersmarket.org.
Thought you should know he’s got a few other stops planned, too:
Urban Farm Store from 4:30-5:30 today, August 13. 1925 SE Morrison St. 97214. Free!
Whole Foods in Tigard Oregon from 11-12 noon on Friday, August 14. 7380 SW Bridgeport Rd 97224. Also free!
Filed Under: Eco Ideas, Education, Food, Sustainable | Tagged:
Solar Powered Food for the Masses in India
Shridi, India just completed the worlds largest solar powered cooking system. India has the top 2 largest solar powered cooking systems in the world. The temple where it was installed has large disc solar concentrators that create over 3 tons of steam per day which is used to feed 20,000 people per day. The $280,000 system (US dollars) was mostly paid for by the central Indian government. Source: TreeHugger
Filed Under: Food, Green Energy, Solar Power | Tagged:
City Garden Farms
City Garden Farms is a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) here in Portland using a brilliant new idea for successful urban farming. CGF is distributed across many different physical yards in Portland, each donated by a CSA member who doesn’t mind a portion of their lawn being converted into a shared garden. City Garden Farms was put together by Dan Bravin and Martin Barret who found that by having many donated lawns they have a lot of space to grow food for the members, more than any single location they can find in the city. The United States used to produce 60% of its food from home gardens, not multinational food corporations that fly food in from thousands of miles away. By having more gardens and less lawns we can reduce our dependence on foreign oil and unsustainable food practices. Prevent starvation, grow your own food.
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Filed Under: Eco Ideas, Food, Garden, Portland, Sustainable | Tagged:
Portland Fruit Tree Project
A great local non-profit the Portland Fruit Tree Project has gained some national attention recently when the New York Times ran “Neighbor, Can You Spare a Plum?” The Portland Fruit Tree Project aims to provide better access and sharing of food from local fruit and nut trees. The Portland Fruit Tree project locats and lists many fruit trees in the area on their website where you can pick up some free food when it is ripe. Just remember to stay on public property while you do your picking unless you are with a picking party or the owner. This provides free or low cost home grown food to you, and many harvesting parties often end up donating half (or sometimes all) of their harvest to local shelters and food banks. As a side result of collecting this food there is less waste and no mess of rotting fallen fruit.
Filed Under: Food, Portland, Sustainable | Tagged: portland fruit tree project
Vertical Farm in Vancouver, BC
Vancouver, BC, in an effort to become the most sustainable city in the world held the “FormShift Vancouver” Competition which sought ideas to improve liveability through greener, denser urban development. Romses Architects met that call with the Harvest Tower concept. This Vertical Farm would be a beautiful and functional building that provided many services to the city including an underground transit station for buses and trains, farmers market, grocery store, a complete farm including plants and animals alike and self sustainable renewable energy from several sources.
The tower would be constructed of many connecting prefabricated tubes that interlock together to create the farm facility. Fish aquaculture, grazing land for livestock, and growing fruits and vegetables would provide food to supply the farmers market and grocery store in a local and sustainable way (not to mention fresh!). Electricity for the building would come from 3 sources, the wind turbines on the top, and a photovoltaic (solar power) coating on all of the outside surfaces and windows. The third source of energy is the most interesting; decaying plant and animal matter is composted and both the heat and offgases (mainly methane) are harnessed to both create electricity, and supply the natural gas needs for the on site living facilities.
The project is in the concept stage for now, but lets hope that we start seeing Vertical Farms start to pop up everywhere around the world, it looks like an amazing way to bring fresh, sustainable, local food with little environmental impact to the masses. Check out www.verticalfarm.com for more.
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