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Sustainability

Lafayette Library and LCG Presents: It’s a Bug’s World! This Saturday at Noon

By Community Events, Kids, Lafayette Library and Learning Center, Organic, Outdoor Learning Center, Sustainability

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Calling all kids! Bring your parents on Saturday, June 28 from noon until 1:00pm for a hunt for hidden bugs at the Lafayette Community Garden! How many can you “spot”?

Join the Lafayette Children’s librarians a few buggy stories and learn what insects can do for and to our gardens. We will explore the world of bugs, their homes and preferred foods. Here’s your chance to dig in dirt, collect insects, inspect them, and release friendly ladybugs to help keep those pesky aphids under control.

Go ahead! Ask your parents to register you for this exciting opportunity.

Saturday, June 7: Composting 101

By Gardening Tips, Organic, Outdoor Learning Center, Sustainability

Ever wondered how you could improve your soil? If you have, you can learn how to cook up a batch of homemade compost on your own.

On June 7  from 1:00 to 2:30PM, Contra Costa County Waste Authority presents Composting 101 at the Lafayette Community Garden.

Linda Mizes returns to the garden to share her expertise on home composting. Learn how easy it is to enrich your soil and reduce your waste while letting nature do the work. You’ll leave with all the information you need to start a simple home composting system, as well as how to use the compost in your garden. Methods of simple vermiculture (worm composting) will also be covered and you’ll learn ways to use worm castings and tea.

This workshop is FREE to adults (ages 18 and older/families welcome), but reservation is required! For questions or to register by phone, call (925) 906-1801 x306. To register online, visit www.wastediversion.org.

“Mow no Mo’!” or “How to remove your lawn”

By California Natives, Community Events, Gardening Tips, lawn, sheet mulching, Sustainability

Are you tired of mowing and edging your lawn, or for paying to have that done for you? Wouldn’t it be great to save money on your water bill? Wish you could quit with the herbicides? Would you like to have a beautiful, water-conserving garden that attracts wildlife? If so, “Mow no Mo!” is the workshop for you.

$30. Limit 30 participants.
Saturday, March 29, 10:00 – 3:00 Lafayette

In this hands-on workshop you’ll get information on how to remove your lawn, select native plants, and design a water-conserving, pesticide-free garden that attracts wildlife. Most importantly, you’ll have the hands-on experience of sheet-mulching a lawn, and you’ll depart confident that you can do this at home.

We’ll meet at a Lafayette garden that currently has a lawn, but won’t when we are through with it! If you have them, bring a labeled long-handled shovel and rake, and gardening gloves, as we will be sheet mulching—cutting back turf, shoveling compost, laying cardboard, and spreading woodchips. We’ll work here until everyone has had a chance to try everything.

Bring a lunch to enjoy while you get your sheet-mulching questions answered. We’ll talk about how to select native plants and where to purchase them, provide you with a list of sheet-mulching resources, and let you know how you can get rebates from your local water district for removing your lawn. You’ll leave this workshop ready to sheet-mulch your own lawn away! To register go here.

Learn About Rainwater Harvesting and Grey Water Installation

By Community Events, News & Events, Sustainability

Did you know that the roof of a 1,000 square foot house can collect around 600 gallons per ONE inch of rain? In an average year with 12 inches of rain, that small roof could collect 7,200 gallons of precious, FREE water. Or are you aware that you can set up your laundry to safely and efficiently water your landscape?

Sustainable Contra Costa is hosting hands-on rainwater harvesting and greywater installation workshops to help you learn how to conserve water, make your home more energy efficient, and save money. Come join us March 23rd and March 30th to start off the Sustainable Living Workshop Series. Lunch will be provided. Space is limited! Location details will be sent after registration. To register and for more information, click the links below.

Rainwater Harvesting
Greywater Installation Workshop

Airport Gardening?

By Blog, News & Events, Sustainability

If you have been to Chicago recently and arrived at the O’hare airport you may have seen something remarkable – the vertical farm in G Terminal.

Future Growing LLC is the innovator at O’hare and the same company gets credit for the amazing rooftop garden that fuels the kitchens of New York City restaurant, Bell, Book and Candle.

Read more here and see the rest of Urban Gardens here.

Hat tip to Lori Caldwell for telling us about this vertical garden.

Global Student Embassy

By Community Events, Sustainability

Today’s Contra Costa Sun has a great article about Global Student Embassy’s International Exchange program in the four Acalanes High School District high schools.

Read about their “service-oriented, pro-environment program for cultivating a global understanding of threats to marine biology, the environment and sustainable food sources.” GSE sponsors “immersive intern and service programs for high school and university students to travel both directions, allowing American kids to invest their energies in Nicaragua and Ecuador, or to host visitors from those countries.”

You can learn more about Global Student Embassy at their website.

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Bye Bye Tank!

By History, News & Events, Sustainability

It seems like only yesterday when our water tank was delivered. This tank helped us through the first two years while our more permanent, sustainable water was sorted out. But now we have more space for growing!

Urban Farmers in the News

By Community Events, News & Events, Organic, Sustainability

Nice article today in the Contra Costa Times about The Urban Farmers.  You can read the whole article here.

LAFAYETTE — What began as a gleam in the eye of Siamack Sioshansi, founder of The Urban Farmers, has become a growing groundswell of East Bay gleaners.

From students at Danville’s Athenian School to a cadre of fresh produce pickers at Temple Isaiah and Savior’s Lutheran Church in Lafayette to future food justice fighters at Contra Costa County’s Monument Crisis Center in Concord, Loaves and Fishes, Diablo Valley College and various Kiwanis clubs to a coalition at Moraga’s Saint Mary’s College, an ancient tradition has become more than a trend in the East Bay.

Read more.