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AT GREEN APPLE, WE FEEL so strongly about putting out a positive message of what we can all be doing to improve our relationship with nature, that not only have we blogged about it in articles… and not only have we documented in with photography… but we have even produced a full-length feature movie about it! It has been called the definitive documentary about natural building, and it was shot in eight countries on four continents, over a period of over four years. Publishing house PM Press has signed on as distributor and will be officially releasing the DVD in a couple of months. The name of the film is FIRST EARTH – Uncompromising Ecological Architecture.
WE’VE MADE NO SECRET of our desire to gradually transition Green Apple into a landscaping company that designs and builds permaculture gardens. It’s perfectly possible for your yard to be beautiful and healthy and productive, all at the same time. But it’s going to take some time and effort to educate our client base until there is a demand for these services! So as part of these efforts to make permaculture principles more widely known, we interviewed Jane Hayes of www.GardenJane.com, one of the city’s foremost experts on urban agriculture, and a dear friend, at her home in downtown Toronto. If you’ve heard the term permaculture being batted around and wondered what it might mean, but been unclear as to what it actually is, then have a listen as Jane eloquently explains.
Continue reading about Garden Jane on Growing Food in Toronto
HERE’S ANOTHER ONE FROM THE VAULT: two video clips of David Miller, mayor of Toronto, inviting delegates to the Cities Alive conference on green infrastructure technologies last month. In the first video clip, he lists the various ecological initiatives that the municipal government has implemented over the last several years, explaining why he believes that Toronto is leading the world in fighting climate change. In the second video clip, he talks about the new Green Roof bylaw that city council enacted back in May. I hope you don’t mind the odd colouration of the video; the room was very dark, because while he spoke, he was screening a series of slides, so I had only a small colour spectrum to work with. In any case, I certainly hope that his enthusiasm for the environment will translate into many more green roofs across Toronto! Here’s hoping!
OKAY, FOR OUR FIRST FORAY into urban agriculture, we wrote Backyard Farming, a blog about vegetable gardens and fruit trees. For those interested in kicking it up a notch, we brought you Backyard Chickens, a blog about raising birds right outside your house. I imagine that we’re already treading on weird and wacky territory here when we start talking about food-producing animals. You may know a couple people in the neighbourhood that take care of a vegetable patch, but you probably aren’t aware of anyone that’s providing a happy home for chickens and turkeys, ducks and geese. So I don’t actually expect anyone out there to take me up on what I’m going to talk about next. But in the event that you’ve already aced Homesteading 101 and you’re past the intermediate class, then we’ve got to give you something to shoot for: an entire menagerie of livestock, fauna of the land, sea, and air!
I HOPE YOU ENJOYED yesterday’s article, Backyard Chickens, where we broke down some of the issues surrounding the consumption of animal products in our society, and suggested that if you eat eggs, perhaps you should think about raising some chickens of your own. Well, a couple of months ago, I went to interview a not-so-mysterious local woman that I will refer to only as the “Toronto Chicken Lady”. She raises several chickens in her own back yard in mid-town Toronto, and she operates the website TorontoChickens.com, preaching the gospel about backyard chickens and urging politicians to legalize the practice. I had to doctor the video so that her identity would remain a secret, but we’re very thankful that she agreed for the clip to be posted online, so that we can spread the good word about backyard chickens. Enjoy!
