Bike Month pt2

Looks like Bike Month got off to a great start! There were quite a few people at the CBC this morning and City Hall was packed!
It was good to see some familiar faces. I hope everyone can check out some of the events going on this month. Check out the City's webpage for more info on all the events.

Matt G. interviewing cycling activists and a driving instructor about what drivers and cyclists can do to keep the roads safe for everyone.

The Toronto Cyclist Union all set up at City Hall.

Just a small glimps of the hoards of cyclists at City Hall this morning.

Bike Month

Toronto's Bike Month is starts on Tuesday, but there are plenty of pre-events going on too (I plan on going to the Brick Works this weekend and getting that free bike wash).
Download the pdf or visit your local bike shop (LBS) and pick up a brochure filled with all the events going on. There is a lot of stuff going on from group rides to workshops, so check it out!

It all kicks off on Monday (May 31st) with a group ride down to city hall for a free pancake breakfast and a free t-shirt (while supplies last). Here are some pics of some sweet custom rides that showed up at last year's group ride. You can also stop by the CBC between 5:30-8:30am for coffee, muffins, and watch a live broadcast of CBC's Metro Morning, click here for more info.

I'm going to try to hit up one of these events before making my way to work. Hope to see some of you there too!

Garden Links

Well I've been finishing around the internet these days to find out some good gardening tip and get some info around school gardens.
Here is just a few links that I thought you might be interested in:

Toronto Balconies Bloom - Toronto has acres of untapped growing space on its balconies, and an opportunity for creating a peaceful and pleasurable living environment while at the same time improving the air we breathe. Just because you don't have a backyard doesn't mean you can't be a gardener.

The Locavore's Garden - Here you'll find some great tips on starting and maintaining a food garden.

Growing for Green - A Ward 21 garden blog group that offers various workshops and volunteer opportunities.

Green Neighbours 21 - A grass-roots, action-oriented group of people who live in ward 21 (and beyond) who are working together on solutions to climate change and other environmental problems.

Green Garage - This private company specializes is green roofing, keeps your house cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Pin It for the Planet

Sorry for totally slacking off with the updates, but here is a quick one to let you know about an event that starts on Monday (May 31st)

I know that I mentioned this event in an earlier post about the Green Living Show, but now there is a little more going on.
The WWF has created a website where you can sign up and track how many kilometres you've travelled with out your car.

Now when you see someone with car keys pinned to their shirt you'll know what it's all about and you can give them a high 5 for being car free.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that bike month will be starting on Monday too. If you're working downtown don't forget to take advantage of a free breakfast outside the CBC on Front St. if you're on your bike

Bottle Water Con't

Sorry I haven't been able to update in the last little while, things around here are getting busy.
The cheque from Metro finally came through (yaaa!) and we're looking at what we need to get to make sure we have a happy garden.

I just wanted to give a quick update about my bottled water post because I came across another link from the Story of Stuff creator. If you're not familiar with the Story of Stuff you should really check it out.
I'm not sure if I posted this link NFB link for bottle water free week, but here it is again WaterLife.nfb.ca. There are some great short videos about how people use water. This site is really well done and lots of fun to explore.

I'll be sure to keep everyone up to date on the garden as it unfolds. In the mean time if you have any garden tools kicking around that you no longer use or want to replace, please feel free to get in touch with me or the school and donate them to our project.

How To Eat Fried Worms

Okay, so I won't be eating these little critters, but I'm hoping that they'll eat all of my food refuse and leave me with some top notch worm castings (poo) for the garden.

The workshop was put on by Food Share and I only had to shell out $10 bucks. I feel really bad that I can't remember the name of the man who ran the workshop, aside from being a wealth of knowledge and giving up his time for cost he was also full of awesome teacher/dad jokes.

I had no idea how easy a tower system vermicomposter would be to build. The only hard part would be getting the worms. There are a few people who sell them online (Cathy's Crawly Composters), but if you know someone with a manure pile there should be some wiggling around in there just remember to take a deep breath before digging in.

The materials:

* 5 plastic shoe boxes - they come in a 5 pack at Canadian Tire

* A small piece of landscaping fabric to cover holes in the bottom lid - this stops the castings from falling through the holes and still allows you to collect the liquid (compost tea) at the bottom.

[That's it!]

The plastic shoe boxes that we used had these three circles on the top of the lids that were perfect for marking the spots for drilling the large holes. We put the lid under the box to make sure the holes would line up when they were all stacked. The heat from the drill will melt the two piece together so we had to carefully pull them apart so as to not break them. We used a smaller drill bit (1/8") to drill some ventilation holes in the top lid.

Once all the drilling was done it was time to fill them up with bedding (damp shredded newspaper), worms, and a little top soil.

[Red wigglers and some melon rind]

[Inside the finished product]

Right now I only have the first level of my tower working, but in about 3 months it the other four levels should be operational and I'll have double the worms I started with. The fifth bottom box is for collecting the compost tea (it does not have holes in the bottom of it). Once the box I'm filling with organic food scraps becomes full I'll add the next box to the top and so on.

This is totally going to be a project for Eco-Club next year. I had considered doing it this year, but I'd like to make sure it works and become a bit of an expert at it before I go sharing my knowledge.

Dandelions 101

Today we started the solarization of the school garden. I hope that no one steals or messes with the tarps. The tarps will have to stay on for four weeks and then the planting will begin! But this isn't what I wanted to talk about.

As you may have noticed over the last few weeks the dandelions have started to flower and are likely taking over your yard. I have to be honest and say that I think dandelions (Taraxacum) a quite pretty and when they're done flowering there is nothing more fun than blowing all the white seed pods into the wind, making for some good pictures and a great way to make wishes.

But aside from all of that dandelions are really good for you and a lot of insects too! The yellow flower is an important source of nectar and pollen for early honey production. Dandelion pollen is also great for making bee pollen. If you find that you have allergies in early spring you may want to consider taking local bee pollen to help alleviate some of the symptoms (itchy eyes, runny nose, asthma, etc.). Butterfly larvae use dandelions as a food source and without food for the larvae there would be no butterflies! The numbers of both these insects are decreasing rapidly because of the way we effect their environments.

Okay, so they look pretty and they're good for insects, but I know that you're asking yourself "what do I get out of them?". I'm glad you asked this question. There are many ways you can use dandelion and it has quite a few medicinal properties too. Many naturopaths use dandelion to purify the liver and gallbladder of toxins. The leaves have large amounts of vitamins: A, C, D, and B-complexes. It also contains the following minerals: iron, magnesium, zinc potassium, manganese, copper, choline, calcium, boron, and silicon. I also find the leaves to be quite tasty. The leaves can be juiced or put into a salad and if you are able to pick them before they flower the leaves will have a less bitter taste. The root of the dandelion can be used to make teas and I've recently learned how to make dandelion jelly from the flowers, some people even make dandelion wine. I never knew that there were so many ways that one could prepare this plant for eating!

If you're living somewhere and don't have access to dandelions you should be able to find them at your local health foods store and your local grocer may carry them too. Since you're eating the leaf I would highly recommend that you buy organic to avoid all the unwanted toxins from pesticides. If you're living in Toronto I'll remind you that the city and the TDSB do not spray any chemicals to control weeds or pests, so take a walk to your local park or school field with big reusable bag and start foraging some organically grown delights!