Repair Cafe and Repair the Landscape

Repair Cafe Pasadena

Saturday, October 10 — 10:00 am to 1:00 pm

THE SHED @ La Loma Development
1355 Lincoln Ave., Pasadena

THE SHED hosts our Repair Cafe on Saturday, October 10 from 10-1. The event will be followed by a presentation by Rishi Kumar of The Growing Home on Repairing the Landscape. Come meet your like-minded neighbors who are looking for ways to decrease stuff going to the landfill, decrease consumerism, and empower people to discover the miracle of growing food.

Bring your broken things and share in the fun of Repair Cafe. We will have tinkers and tailors on hand.
Follow Repair Cafe Pasadena on Facebook and Meet-up for updates of specialty repairs we will be offering. This time Around the Cycle will be offering Bike repair or consultation.

Of course the Really, Really Free Market will be up and running! Bring something in giftable condition, and take something... free!

Parking around the Shed is time limited. Read parking signs.
To volunteer or for more info, contact Therese.

— Therese Brummel

Repair Café Pasadena

Photo by Therese Brummel.

Additional Mulch Distribution Scheduled!

Mulch for the People

Yes, Mulch for the People has made a difference! Responding to our requests, the City of Pasadena has added a second mulch distribution location on the west side of Pasadena. The new location is at Robinson Park on Fair Oaks at the west end of the parking lot just south of the ball-fields. Public Works will now provide a load of mulch monthly on the Fridays in between the monthly distribution dates for Victory Park.

The first distribution was on June 19, and a quick visit confirmed the mulch to be of good quality–tree wood shredded small without many leaves. After a week, the original pile had been reduced to about a tenth its original size. The nine-tenths taken are clear evidence of a demand, previously unmet. Thank you, City of Pasadena!

If you haven't gotten yours yet, zip on over before it's gone! Put a thick layer around established plants to reduce evaporation, discourage weeds, attract earthworms and microbes to improve soil and discourage El Niño runoff.

The last scheduled mulch drop for 2015 at Victory Park will be on October 9th and at Robinson Park on October 23rd. If you want mulch provided during winter too, do contact your Pasadena City Council Member and let them know!
 
Follow upcoming plans for a public meeting and for ways of getting mulch delivered at our Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/MulchForThePeople

— Lin Griffith

Mulch for the People

Photo by Lin Griffith.

Summer Workshops in Review

Throop Learning Garden

Genevieve Arnold’s Seed Collection Workshop

We were pleased to host Genevieve Arnold and her hands-on seed harvesting workshop on July 25. We learned about different types of seeds, when and how to harvest seed, how to thresh and process seed, and various strategies for storing seeds. Then we went out into Throop Learning Garden and harvested seeds from cleveland sage, white sage, fabiolus penstemon, and several other plants. We all came away with new awareness and competency.

Genevieve offers classes at the Theodore Payne Foundation.

Lisa Novick’s Transform Your Lawn
to Native Plant Habitat Presentation

Throop Learning Garden welcomed Lisa Novick to Throop Hall on August 22. She gave a rousing presentation on how to design and install a native plant habitat to replace your lawn. Lisa used her yard as a beautifully illustrated example of how to accomplish the transformation. She took us, step-by-step, through her process, highlighting stumbling blocks and work-arounds. And she provided resources, inspiration, and the joy of the challenge of just doing it.

The audience raptly absorbed Lisa’s information. A lively Q&A session rounded up the presentation. And happy raffle winners went home with a native plant. Lisa reminded us that we are the ones who will begin to reestablish habitat and heal our environment, one yard at a time.

Check out Lisa Novick’s blog at huffingtonpost.com

Shelley Powsner and Laura Henne’s
Composting Workshop

Throop Learning Garden happily hosted Shelley Powsner and Laura Henne in an afternoon about compost on September 19. They shared their expertise, insight, and advice with a small group of rapt students. She offered an overview of composting techniques, emphasizing how to choose the type of composting best suited to one's specific needs. We chose a static compost for Throop Learning Garden, for the type of yard waste and the amount of attention we would give it. The workshop participants constructed two static bins, under Shelley's guidance. Come and check them out at the west end of Throop Learning Garden!

After a potluck lunch, Laura schooled us in vermiculture, or worm composting. This is one of the composting techniques best suited for urban gardeners who have more kitchen vegetable scraps than yard waste. She demonstrated the workings of several types of bins and how to construct and care for them. Then we had the opportunity to build a worm bins.

Everyone went away filled with enthusiasm, inspired to put their experience into practice at home. Our deepest thanks to Laura and Shelley for the sharing of their knowledge and inspiring us all.

We have enjoyed the opportunity to explore garden related topics and reskillings through workshops at Throop Learning Garden this past summer!  Seed saving, lawn conversion, native plant habitat construction, and multiple composting methods have expanded our awareness and skill sets.

— January Nordman

Throop Learning Garden

Photo by January Nordman.

Bring Public Fruit Trees to Pasadena!

Fruit Trees in Public Places

Transition Pasadena–in collaboration with Pasadena Community Gardens Conservancy and Day One and the Pasadena Public Health Department–has an eager crew who have been meeting with civic leaders and committees and commissioners to discuss the need for Fruit Trees in Public Places. Pasadena has been lagging behind in adopting this kind of idea.

Cities in over twenty other states have adopted plans to allow fruit trees, either singly or in orchards to be planted on public land for citizens to access and care for and harvest. Pasadena Public Health Department has set a priority to increase fresh fruit and vegetable access, especially in low income areas. Planting fruit trees seems to be a sustainable way to grow a food bank of sorts. As drought slowly turns the Central Valley farmlands fallow, we need to build some resilience into our local food security.

Madison Elementary School would like a larger garden and an orchard of ten or more trees. Fire stations are drought-scaping their lawns away. What great places for fruit trees! How about at libraries, parks, parkways? Currently there is a possible fine of up to $1000 for planting a fruit tree in your parkway.

The Pasadena Urban Forestry Management Plan has been reviewed by Dudek Consulting. It will soon be presented to the City Council for approval. Please turn out if you think Fruit Trees in Public Places is a great idea. Dudek does not.

Contact Therese to learn how to get involved or for more information.

— Therese Brummel


Photo by January Nordman.

Living for a Post-Carbon World

Energy Descent Group

— Peter Kalmus


Photo by Therese Brummel.

Ban Polystyrene in Pasadena!

Styrofoam Free Pasadena

Stryrofoam Free Pasadena, a coalition of community, health, and environmentally-minded groups and individuals have been working for over two years to enact a polystyrene/ Styrofoam ban in Pasadena, in accord with our City's adopted Zero Waste plan. Initially buried in the middle of the Public Works Zero Waste 2040 initiative, we successfully advocated after months of outreach—showing up and speaking out at city meetings and hearings—to bring the issues of polystyrene waste, toxicity, and environmental contamination to the front of the line of the City's Zero Waste goals.

So this year, the City convened a Working Group to study feasibility of a polystyrene take-out container ban; however several paid outside industry lobbyists were permitted in the stakeholder group and have made every effort to stop and stall the process.  Recently, the City held two public meetings to provide an update on where the Working Group was in the process and to collect public feedback.  In two public sessions, public support for the ban was strong!  Progress has been made, but still every effort is being made to forestall a ban in Pasadena.  But we can get this done!

Here are some facts to consider:

• Polystyrene does not biodegradable,
• Styrene, a toxic component of polystyrene, can leach into food when polystyrene food containers are heated,
• Recyclable and/or compostable alternatives are readily available at a nominal additional cost.
• Polystyrene is lightweight, breaks into tiny fragments, and floats, and so is easily blown into our green space and waterways,
• Polystyrene accounts for a disproportionate 17% of litter in Los Angeles County (source: LACDPW),
• Polystyrene kills wildlife such as birds and fish and is a major source of plastic marine pollution.
• No waste haulers for Pasadena "recycle" polystyrene, which has little commercial value (Allan Company explained that it costs $1000 to process a ton of polystyrene, which has only a $65 post-market value) so most or all polystyrene from Pasadena's waste stream is actually dumped at Scholl Canyon landfill.
• 93 other California municipalities have already passed a full or partial ban on polystyrene products.

Our next steps leading up to a vote before City Council expected late in 2015 are to get more organizations and key interests to support the polystyrene ban and we are circulating a new petition that will be delivered before key public meetings.

We've put up an online petition at Change.org that we encourage everyone to read and sign:
Pasadena Phase Out Single Use Styrofoam

Let's make this a Greener, Cleaner, Pasadena!

— Qrys Cunningham

Styrofoam-Free Pasadena  [Facebook]

Photo by Therese Brummel.

The Way of Council

Council Practice Group

— David Cutter


Photo by Alexander Mueller; Flickr.

The Olive Harvest

Throop Learning Garden

Throop Learning Garden experienced its first olive harvest. Our olive tree provided almost a bushel of olives, after several years with no harvest.

We watched the tree, in great anticipation, as olives began to form in August. We began to plan for an olive brining workshop in late October. We all were surprised when the olives came ripe the last week of August!  Our surprise was burnished by gratitude at the bounty presented to us. 

So we flew into action! Therese, Mimi, and Judith worked out a picking relay team-one on a ladder picking, one spotting the person on the ladder, and one gathering up the fallen olives onto a blanket placed under the tree. Much laughter ensued. And giant bowls brimming with olives.

But then the realization that we had an abundant harvest that needed to be processed. What should we do? None of us were very experienced with olive preserving.

We divvied the olives between 7 or 8 folks to try different processing methods and share what they learn at a future date. Michael is trying the Italian salt pack method suggested by the UC Davis ag department.Maggie is doing a salt brine.

Therese is trying a variant of the salt brine. I went with a Sicilian brine for the green olives and a Kalamata brine for the black, fully ripe olives.

Here are some good resources for olive processing and preserving:

UC-Davis—huge overview of many different techniques
http://anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8267.pdf

Brining olives
http://www.milkwood.net/2015/04/12/curing-olives-basic-brine-salt-methods/

Drying olives
http://www.markdymiotis.com/food/processing-olives/
http://www.motherearthnews.com/real-food/curing/how-to-cure-olives-zmaz76zhar.aspx

With perseverance and luck, we may be able to sample some finished olives at the next Repair Café at The Shed on October 10.

— January Nordman



Photo by Therese Brummel.