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Showing posts from May, 2007

California blueberries in May

For breakfast, I eat berries (some combination of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries, blueberries) with cereal and yogurt. I have been fortunate to purchase California grown strawberries and raspberries at Berkeley Bowl. However, the California blueberry has been harder to find. I was so delighted to see California grown blueberries at the Derby/MLK Farmers' Market! I bought a pack of berries from Triple Delight Blueberries located in Caruthers, placing it deep in my cloth bag to prevent snacking. As I filled my bag with other produce - peaches, Catalan Family Farm red-leaf lettuce and parsley, Swanton Berry Farm strawberries, Riverdog Farm asparagus - I realized that my last visit to the Derby/MLK market was in July 2006. I have been to other markets - Center/MLK; the Ferry Building; and various roadside stands - but I am not a consistent farmers' market shopper. I buy most of my produce from local grocery stores, primarily Berkeley Bowl. On my way into t

Experiment in open space choice

I live in the Le Conte neighborhood of Berkeley. The neighborhood has many traffic circles that have been planted by neighbors. One of my favorite circles is the butterfly habitat at Ellsworth and Russell which extends to the Le Conte School Butterfly Garden. It seems apt that a school would have a public garden (one might go so far as to say a park) because schools and parks are the quintessential public services. The U.S. was "the first Western industrialized nation to establish public schools" (Noguera, 1994). It was also the first country to provide wholesale public parks. (European countries had public parks but these were often converted private estates and grounds.) Noguera also writes that vis a vis school choice, the U.S. is attempting to "replace [traditional public schools] with new models, many of which are largely undefined and untested." The arguments about school choice chronicled by Noguera and others seem applicable to nature making in Pit

Hidden Gems adventure

On the morning of Sunday, May 20, I took my bicycle out of the basement storage room. It had been two years since I had used the bike. Both tires were flat. We used a hand pump to inflate both tires. A friend was to accompany me on the Hidden Gems Tour , but her bicycle was still in the shop. I was surprised that the repair would take a week. I should have taken this as a caution about my own bicycle. I arrived at Halcyon Commons, the starting point for the tour, several minutes after the start time of 10 a.m. I had not missed any of the introductions. Most of the riders were greeting folks they knew and meeting new people as well as purchasing the tour map. With a critical mass of riders, John Steere, one of the tour organizers, made welcome remarks. John spoke about the creation of Halcyon Commons, comparing it to San Pablo Park. He said that both parks had created communities. Other organizers spoke as well as the tour's cartographer, John Coveney. John Coveney des

Nature abhors a garden

Both Michael Pollan and Peter del Tredichi have used the garden colloquialism "nature abhors a garden." I don't know what Michael Pollan says about the phrase (I have not read Second Nature: A Gardener's Education ), but Peter Del Tredici writes, "gardening is essentially about humans controlling - even disregarding - the successional process to produce specific aesthetic effects, while ecology is about natural selection controlling plant succession based on the principle of survival of the fittest....We cannot mimic nature in our gardens because nature is a process, not a product." Maybe so, but some urban gardens are tended with natural processes in mind. For example, the California coastal meadow planted in the traffic circle at Fulton and Russell in South Berkeley (photograph above). According to Robin, the neighbor and historical landscape ecologist who tends the meadow, the oak in the centre of the circle was planted as an acorn. The meadow palette

Not outdoor seating

Read Qualities of domestic life and This is not eclectic seating...

Hidden Gems of Berkeley Tour - May 20, 2007

Join BFBC, BPFP, and Livable Berkeley for "an inspiring tour of Berkeley’s eclectic fabric of gardens, paths, strange and familiar cultural and natural features..." (John Steere). Time: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Meeting place: Halcyon Commons

Word of the day : YIMBY

Taking a cue from Dolores Hayden's vocabulary book on sprawl, A Field Guide to Sprawl ,as well as the French word-a-day website by Kristin Espinasse, I will occasionally feature concepts related to neighborhood planning. You have probably heard of NIMBY (not in my backyard) and possibly NIABY (not in anyone's backyard) (see Wikipedia ). NIABY is also the name of an organization in Vancouver that opposes "'abstinent-contingent' drug addict supportive housing throughout Vancouver's residential neighbourhoods." NIMBY is associated with neighborhoods and communities that use wealth and/or political power to stave off the siting of toxic and hazardous land uses. But less affluent communities through environmental regulations and environmental justice discourse have also employed NIMBY strategies. Several scholars note that the success of a NIMBY campaign is often bitter-sweet; the environmentally noxious use is usually sited in another community. NIMBYism