The Community Beautification Grant of the City of Los Angeles, Board of
Public Works, Office of Community Beautification has been awarding
grants since 1998. The staff has a special knowledge of the people,
organizations and neighborhoods of Los Angeles.
Grants for Urban Farming Gardens
Urban Farming has a well-known sponsor interested in paying the costs
to develop five (5) 20' x 20' (400 square ft) produce-bearing gardens
in Los Angeles that can be secured for at least two years, with a goal
toward becoming sustainable through initial and ongoing community
members and group involvement.
Suggested Garden Locations: Community center
grounds; Parks; City lots; University/College campus; Faith-based
organization sites that accept other community member involvement and
also those that are non-denominational. (this is for community sites,
rather than elementary/middle/high school locations)
Farmscaping is the management of vegetation
on and around the farm, to include plantings
on roadways, field margins, waterways, natural
areas and generally non-cropped areas. The term
"farmscaping" can cover a wide range of practices,
such as grassed waterways, buffers, filter
strips and cover crops, as well as hedgerows and
windbreaks.
Hedgerows are defined as lines or groups of
trees, shrubs, perennial forbs, and grasses that
are planted along roadways, fences, field edges
or other non-cropped areas. The word "hedge,"
from the Old English word "hegg," referred to an
enclosure or boundary formed by closely growing
bushes or by dead plant material.
Windbreaks are barriers usually consisting of
trees or shrubs that are used to reduce and redirect
wind, resulting in microclimate changes in
the sheltered zone.
Filter strips are planted areas that use vegetation
to control soil erosion, slow water runoff, and
capture and prevent sediments and nutrients from
entering waterways.
Hedgerows can have multiple functions
They can
serve as habitat for beneficial insects, pollinators
and other wildlife;
provide erosion protection
and weed control;
serve as windbreaks;
stabilize
waterways;
reduce non-point source water
pollution and groundwater pollution;
increase
surface water infiltration;
buffer pesticide drift,
noise, odors and dust;
act as living fences and
boundary lines;
increase biodiversity;
and provide
an aesthetic resource.
Diversity in hedgerow
species, especially when using natives, assures
a range of attributes, such as multiple kinds of
insects and wildlife attracted, positive effects to
soil and water resources, and success of individual
plants under site-specific climatic and other
environmental conditions.
The practice of intensive gardening is not just for those
with limited garden space; rather, an intensive garden
concentrates work efforts to create an ideal plant environment,
giving better yields with less labor.
A good intensive garden requires early, thorough
planning to make the best use of time and space in the garden.
Interrelationships of plants must be considered before planting,
including nutrient needs, shade tolerance, above- and below-ground
growth patterns, and preferred growing season.
Urban food security is a rising concern with climate change affecting traditional agriculture with droughts, floods and migratory changes for pollinators. Local regional food production is also a solution for access to fresh foods to reduce obesity and childhood onset diabetes. A major overhaul of our food system is bursting from its seeds.
A study of the magicians of the soil is an endless endeavor! Paul Stamets makes it a bit easier to learn about mushrooms with this TED talk. Mushrooms are both a citizen of the micro world of soil, but they are the manufacturers of the very soil in which they live. What a sentient approach to sustainability.
The advantages of portable sub-irrigated planters (SIPs) can encourage more PONGs
(Portable Outreach Neighborhood Garden (PONG) and personal gardens with no need for the backbreaking and costly work
of breaking concrete and blacktop.
Back breaking work is simply not necessary.
SIP
gardening also avoids the risk of contaminated soil.
InsideUrbanGreen.com is a helpful DIY site to help you make your own planters and planter boxes instead of going gung ho and tearing up concrete, etc.
Add to these innovative storage box planters a few heirloom seeds...and you have your own victory garden on your patio!
It can be done! One home at a time! Low impact family gardening makes a huge difference in our climate change strategy...and the health of our families:
Havana relies on 200 urban farms known as organoponicos
Cuba, on the brink of starvation when the Soviet Union collapsed 20 years ago, now produces 90% of its fruits and vegetable needs, using organic, low-tech inputs. The Cuban diet is healthier and uses 1/3 the energy to produce versus typical western food production.
Some of the plots are small - just a few rows of lettuces and radishes being grown in an old parking space.
Other
plots are much larger - the size of several football pitches. Usually
they have a stall next to them to sell the produce at relatively low
prices to local people.
Community development techniques -- both commercial and residential -- have a major impact on fresh water supplies and the surface and underground water system. Pavement is a big contributor to the problem. Now it can provide a solution.
Sustainable Solutions with Low Impact Development
L.I.D. is in. That's Low Impact Development, the standards by which the local ecosystem is minimally impacted by development, and water is preserved as a precious resource.
West coast microclimates are interesting. From rain soaked areas like San Anselmo, to rain starved areas like Bakersfield, each zone presents it own challenges for water issues. With each water challenge comes difficulties that municipalities, developers, and home-owners have to adapt to, and manage.
California Water Conservation Solutions
For example, water conservation is critical in California's central valley where each gallon of runoff can be a precious resource, if properly managed. Other areas of California offer surprising challenges -- such as Marin county, which is more like Portland, Oregon, which receives over 40 inches of rain a year.
LID offers workable solutions that developers and home-owners can implement to manage water issues whatever their situation -- dearth or deluge. Whether the issue is drought conditions or excessive runoff, sustainable water management is important to California.
Permeable Pavement allows water to rapidly pass through the pavement into a cistern or natural underground water supplies.
Modular Pavers Used in Hardscape Applications
Permeable pavement is a relatively new concept and product that reduces "impervious" surfaces from driveways, sidewalks and other hardscapes by allowing water to run through the pavement and back into the soil - not follow the hardscape to the street and eventually into our waterways. This solution retains more rainwater for our underground aquafers - but it also allows plants and the soil to filter pollutants out of the water naturally.
Permeable Pavers
One LID product that can provide solutions for water runoff and infiltration issues, large or small, is permeable pavers from Permapave Northwest.
Different from traditional concrete pavers, Permapave NW pavers have an actual flow-through rate of over 1 gallon of water per second. The pavers are manufactured from natural rock, with an acrylic polymer binder similar to the clear coat on your automobile. The finished product is a completely inert paver which returns water directly to the soil, or underground storage, without adding alkalinity, zinc or hydrocarbons to the runoff.
When permeable pavers are installed over properly prepared secondary filtration in the sub-grade, they will capture and filter 100% of gross pollutants and up to 70% phosphorus, 80% of heavy metals and 98% of hydrocarbons from the water that flows through them.
Residential Applications
Alleys, Driveways
Walkways
Patios
Camper Parking
High Traffic Grass Areas
Pools / Hot Tubs
Courtyard
Rooftops
Sidewalks / Pathways
Foundation Drainage
Commercial / Industrial Applications
Parking Areas
Pedestrian Walkway
Bike Path
Plaza / Entryway
Bioretention / Rain Garden
Rooftop
Tree Grates
Rooftops
Roadways / Median Strips
Large Public Spaces
Modular Permeable Pavers for Sustainable Landscaping
Modular pavers over an advantage over "poured" pervious pavement by allowing edges of permeable pavement to be installed in many locations - under downspouts, along sidewalks, along driveways, around trees, around rain gardens, and on or around patios.
Modular Pavers Used in Landscape Applications
Permapave NW pavers are available in a number of colors/aggregates to enhance building and landscaping aesthetics.
PermapaveNW's Permeable pavers come in a modular, 12x12x2" standard size, with widths up to 16" and thicknesses up to 4" for heavier vehicle loads.
The pavers, while extremely pervious, provide the hard surface needed for normal urban activities.
The surface not only performs well for sidewalks, biking paths, parking lots, and driveways but also handles water efficiently in both drought and flood conditions.
The EPA has long noted the benefits of pervious pavers, highlighting them in their Best Management Practices: "depending on the design, pervious pavements (pavers), when used in combination with other techniques such as vegetated swales, or vegetated filter strips, may eliminate or reduce the need for land intensive BMPs, such as dry extended detention or wet retention ponds." (EPA Best Management Practices- porous pavements)
Both residential and commercial developers may find that the use of pervious pavers, which can range up to $8 per square foot, can actually make money for them, by eliminating detention ponds and increasing the amount of land that can be developed.
Home-owners can install the easy-to-use permeable pavers themselves, providing drainage areas for driveway or patios that may be puddling, or as a pervious cover for an underground water storage cistern.
The pavers can also be used as stepping stones, in pet areas, in gardens, along walkways, as parking areas for RVs -- the landscaping possibilities are endless.
Some municipalities are offering rebates for the purchase of LID products like Permapave. Check with your local city or county city and county governments, as well as water providers (ie: Metropolitan Water District) to find incentives and rebates to improve water quality, reduce runoff, or retain stormwater.
Sustainable Solutions to Stormwater Runoff
Retaining rain water for your landscape can be especially helpful during California's prolonged droughts. By protecting your landscape with adequate water supplies from a cistern, and from focusing the available rain into specific rain gardens, your plants will not suffer as much - and your water bill will thank you, too!
Sample permeable pavers by Permapave Northwest
CONTACT:
Permapave Northwest
Distributor for Western US
1-877-694-0141
815 NE 172nd Ave
Vancouver, WA 98684 www.permapavenw.com
"Locovores" eat foods from their local foodshed
or a self-determined radius from their home (commonly either 100 or 250
miles, depending on location). By eating locally, most locavores hope
to create a greater connection between themselves and their food
sources, resist industrialized and processed foods, and support their
local economy.
In trying to live a more sustainable, logical lifestyle, many locavores give themselves exceptions to a strict local diet.
Commonly excluded items include coffee, chocolate, salt, and/or
spices. To keep a local focus, they often try to find local coffee roasters,
chocolate producers, and spice importers.
There is a growing interest in regional native foods and ethnic foods such as the Southwest's historic Mexican influence with herbs and peppers. But there are additional native foods such as dried beans, squash, corn and nuts.
Locovores find tremendous challenge and adventure in discovering what grows in their own neighborhood and nearby communities. They learn more about their ecosystems and how their use of water, their waste management choices and their choice of housing size, materials and styles all affect the natural food production capability in their region. Everything is connected ... weather patterns, soil nutrients, drainage, insect infestations...and even those humble gardeners, migrating birds!
Locovores have much to learn from their wild neighbors -- both plants and animals. What a great challenge to give your family -- trying to eat foods from driving distance from where you live!
"Leslie Allen has always been enthusiastic in her support of northern Nevada's local food lifestyle. As
commercial horticulture program coordinator for University of Nevada
Cooperative Extension (UNCE), it's part of her job ... yet her passion
for this increasingly important field goes far beyond the norm. So much so, in fact, that Allen's love of what she does has found a new description." She's a "Locavore" ... and proud of it.
A local eating study, known as "Locavore Nation," in which participants
attempted to eat 80% of their food from local, organic and
sustainable sources. "Locavore Nation" was sponsored by America Public
Media's radio show, "The Splendid Table."
After voluntarily subjecting themselves to eating 80% locally
produced foods for a year, the 15 participants in the Splendid Table's
"Locavore Nation" have been released from captivity and are free to go
back to eating Corn Nuts and powdered mini donuts.
You can retrace their steps on the "Splendid Table" site, where the entire year's worth of blogs are still archived.
The situation has been identified as the Colony Collapse Disorder
(CCD). The disappearance of these pollinators could have serious
repercussions on U.S. agriculture and ultimately the entire food
supply. Experts still do not know the exact cause for the vanishing of the honeybees.
Among the theories considered are: invasive parasitic mites, new and
emerging diseases, pesticide poisoning, poor nutrition and I’ve even
read some articles that attribute the situation to
