New directions in Change-Making

Happy Earth Day!  As you’ve undoubtedly heard a million times before, “Earth Day is every day.”  And at ECM that’s certainly the case.

That’s why today is a great day to highlight change-making projects that you can be a part of.  Today and every day!

Summer Solstice Local Foods Gala:  Save the date for Saturday evening June 21.  ECM’s Advisory Circle is cooking up a very special event you won’t want to miss!

Food from a Flowerpot

Learn the tips and tricks of growing abundant food in a flowerpot garden.  Come join us for a hands-on workshop on Saturday April 12.  Bring a flowerpot and take home a garden!

Plus, celebrate the relase of Joanne Poyourow’s latest booklet, “Food from a Flowerpot,” the newest addition to ECM’s garden booklet series.

Moving the Mulch Mountain – Feb 25

Come join us for a Mulching Party, as we move the Mulch Mountain. Evolving events all evening:

>>”One for you, one for the garden” — Do you need mulch? Give one, get one. Help move a wheelbarrow-full for the Community Garden, and then take one home for you! The fun begins at 4pm

>>”Pizza and mulch” — We’ll be bringing in pizza for hungry mulch-movers, approximately 5pm

>>”Men and mulch” — Get to know a local men’s circle, as they volunteer for the late-night shift at moving the mulch mountain. 7pm until finished.

When the truck brings mulch to the Community Garden at Holy Nativity, the mountain it leaves behind is truly enormous. Since the truck cannot fit up the driveway, it dumps in front of the garden and we need to move the mulch by hand into the back storage area, as well as distributing it in the Garden. We need your help!

Come join the fun
Moving Mulch Mountain
Tues Feb 25, 4pm-7:30pm
Community Garden at Holy Nativity
6700 W. 83rd, Los Angeles, 90045

wear garden clothes and closed-toed-shoes, and bring work gloves if you have them.
event is only cancelled if there is heavy rain

RSVP online or Facebook https://www.facebook.com/events/282497875236736/

Powerdown: Let’s talk about it

We’re caught in the squeeze right now.

Climate change is advancing at an incredible speed. We know we should do something, but we lack the political will to do what it takes to hold it to 2°C. UN committees are now being counseled to prepare for 4°C of warming. To keep it survivable, there’s got to be a powerdown — starting today.

Meanwhile green-tech enthusiasts cheer the rapid rate at which certain countries are installing renewable energy infrastructure. But reports are now surfacing of shortages in the rare earth ingredients needed to make that renewable infrastructure. We don’t have enough rare earth materials to replace the whole fossil infrastructure and continue on our current level of consumption. No one dares speak the little secret: Even with renewables, there’s got be a powerdown.

Seed School Lite

If you like growing heirloom veggies, you’ll love Seed School. Learn how you can join the numbers of people who are carefully preserving our heirloom vegetable varieties, their wonderful stories, and their precious genetic diversity.  Taught by Bill McDorman and staff from Native Seed SEARCH in Tucson, this 1-day workshop will include lecture, dialog, and hands-on aspects of saving seed from most common vegetable species.

The curriculum for this 1-day “Seed School Lite” session is a condensed version of the full 5-day series (which is currently sold out). Reserve your space via the Native Seeds website TODAY, before this one sells out too!
Seed School Lite
Sat Feb 8, 9am-5pm
Class will take place rain or shine.
Tuition $100 includes supplies and light lunch. Bring your own notebook and pen.
Register at http://www.nativeseeds.org/events/seed-school/253-seed-school-la-2
Some scholarships are being offered by the Seed Library of Los Angeles.  For scholarships, contact info@slola.org“

Letter to LA Times about the GMO-free Zone

In Reply to LA Times Editorial, “L.A.’s bid to target genetically engineered crops isn’t productive”

Creating a GMO-Free Zone in L.A. serves an important function. It preserves space — real, tangible geography — where clean seeds can be grown.

All food comes from seeds. In order to have clean food, you need to have clean seed. To contain GMOs, labeling the bad stuff is only one part of the effort. Parallel to labeling, we have to save the good stuff. We have to save heirloom seeds.

Why ECM is indifferent to traditional politics

Sometimes a few paragraphs from an article seem to bolt off the screen at you.

A section from an article by Kurt Cobb summed up nicely why ECM isn’t into traditional politics.  Why, since ECM’s inception, we have made every effort to avoid talking about “democrats” or “republicans.”  

What do GMOs have to do with Resilience?

In so many ways, GMOs deplete any resilience in our food supply.

GMOs are perhaps the ultimate pinnacle of petroleum-dependent agriculture. These plants are laboratory-engineered to work together with petro-chemicals: herbicides, insecticides, fertilizers. Headed into a world with less fossil resources, deepening the petro-dependence of our food supply is an absolutely disasterous course.

For millions of years, humanity has fed itself “organically” — only your great-grandmother didn’t have a term for it. That was normal agriculture. This chemical-dependent stuff is very recent, just since WWII. GMOs are the ultimate in UN-organic. And the chemical-centric agribusiness process is stripping out our topsoils, polluting our waterways, sickening our farm workers …

And studies are just now beginning to emerge what GMOs do to undermine human health. (YouTube) We can indeed have a better life than this.

Veggies gone WILD

Effortless food.  Imagine if your garden plot produced mind-boggling abounts of fresh organic veggies — without you hardly lifting a finger.  Wow.

With a little bit of prep work (and a little bit of know-how), you can have it — especially during SoCal’s cool season.

[pictured: a spontaneous sprouting of chard, arugula, amaranth, frisee, cilantro].

GMO Action Alert: TOMORROW

Councilman Paul Koretz and Councilman Mike Bonin will hold a press conference tomorrow morning at City Hall to announce that they will introduce a motion to make the City of Los Angeles a GMO-Free Zone.  Come join us and make a big crowd for the news cameras!

When:  Friday October 18.  Gather 8:45-9:00a.m.  Move into location 9:00a.m.  Press conference begins 9:15 a.m.

Where:  Gather at the Rotunda, Los Angeles City Hall, 200 N. Spring Street, LA 90012.  Allow 20+ minutes to park and make your way into the building.

Bring:  Signs — preferably homemade — that say things like “GMO-Free LA” ; “We want GMO-Free” ; “No GMO” ; “Monsanto lied to us” ; “Say No to GMOs” ; “Get GMOs out of LA” ; “Don’t engineer my food” ; “No GMOs in my garden”