Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from October, 2008

Happy Halloween, the food connection

Aside from pumpkins, Halloween has a food-related history. Samhein (today's Halloween) was celebrated on the first day of the Celtic year which corresponds to November 1 on the modern calendar. The American Folklore Center notes that the celebration marked the beginning of winter. Since they were pastoral people, it was a time when cattle and sheep had to be moved to closer pastures and all livestock had to be secured for the winter months. Crops were harvested and stored. The celebration "marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death" according to the History Channel . Summer and its harvest officially ended in September. Last week, I exchanged the last of my summer tomatoes for Hachiya persimmons from Forage Oakland . The winter harvest in Berkeley also includes quince, apple, and lemon. Celebrating "the end of harvest" seems strange among this bounty. There

Musical day

What are the chances of being serenaded twice in one day? On Wednesday afternoon, I encountered a street band, and in the evening, I heard a band in honor of a transportation and land use nonprofit. Early afternoon: The Spirit of 29 , Bancroft Ave., Berkeley, California, "playing songs from the '29 Depression for this depression." Early evening: Freddie and the Freeloaders, 2nd Street, San Francisco, playing at the TransForm (formerly TALC) party. For more about the role of music in "restoring the civic spirit and bringing life back to cities and towns," read Terrain.org Issue 19, The Music of It All .

Thoreau's notes on the seasons

"A Thoreau Gazetteer" - Robert F. Stowell, edited by William L. Howarth Nineteenth-century notes on flora local to Concord, Mass. have been used by Dr. Richard B. Primack and Dr. Abraham J. Miller-Rushing to determine changes in the flowering times of common species like orchids, mints, gentians, lilies, and iris, reports the New York Times . Henry David Thoreau is one of several note takers whose records were used in Drs. Primack and Miller-Rushing's study.

Calophyllum lanigerum Miq. var. austrocoriaceum

Calophyllum lanigerum Miq. var. austrocoriaceum (or Bitangor), Sarawak flora, Harvard University Herbaria The Calophyllum story View images of the tree and its seeds .

Park and transit visuals, California ballot, 2008 Election

East Bay Regional Parks District, Open Space Bond Measure Extension (Measure WW - Yes ; No ) AC Transit, Bus Rapid Transit/ BRT on Telegraph, concept video [via Living in the O ] (Measure KK - City of Berkeley analysis ) High Speed Rail Trip Visualization Image: California High Speed Rail Authority (Prop 1A - California League of Women Voters analysis )

Green or not green: Berkeley's Measure LL

{Updated on November 18, 2008; October 25, 2008.} What is green? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers ten definitions of the word green. The first definition is related to the color green. The second definition related to composition; for example " a green field" or "a green salad." Green is also defined as youthful, immature (like an unripe fruit, inexperienced, and unseasoned as in "not fully processed or treated." It is means envious, as in the saying "green with envy." The final definition provided by the dictionary is what concerns us: elating to or being an environmentalist political movement; concerned with or supporting environmentalism; tending to preserve environmental quality (as by being recyclable, biodegradable, or nonpolluting) [our emphasis] We will feature various "green" practices in this new series - What is green? The subject of the first post is Measure LL is a local Berkeley measure on the November 4, 2008

Photo du jour: Three olive foragers

Taken on Shattuck Ave., south of Ashby, Berkeley, Calif.

Tree Walk: Urban tree lectures, Sarajevo's urban forest

Anecdotal and empirical evidence show that urban trees have numerous benefits including the provisioning of ecosystem services, increasing residential and commercial property values, improving attention and well-being, and enabling social ties among neighbors. In a recent lecture talk titled "War and Trees: the destruction and replanting of the urban and peri-urban forest of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina," Igor Lacan indirectly highlighted to another benefit of urban trees; I am paraphrasing: Trees diminish the magnitude of destruction caused by the war. Photograph: Courtesy of Igor Lacan The focus of Lacan's lecture was not this additional benefit of trees; rather, he talked about the damage to urban trees and greenspaces in Sarajevo between 1992 and 1995. More specifically, trees were cut for wood during the siege which blocked access to pre-war energy supplies. Interestingly, the siege lines varied in their proximity to the city so in some areas, city and peri-urba

Etceteras

Berkeley's: Solar FIRST Pilot Program 2nd draft Climate Action Plan All Storm Day/ Adopt-A-Drain "The proposed City Council budget shall reduce the City of Oakland's tree maintenance staff by more than 50%" [ via email from West Oakland Tree Planting Program ]. Review the city's budget here . Public Spaces Meant to Heal [ via New York Times ] Plant Seeds Hitch Rides on Traveling Shoes [ via New York Times ] UC Considers Owl Box for People’s Park Rat Problem [ via Berkeley Daily Planet ] Update: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of the 'Delicious' Apple [ via Grist Magazine ] A Green Revolution for Africa? [ via New York Times ]

Parks abound in Portland's newest neighborhood, the Pearl District

Vera Katz Park is the newest park in Portland's newest neighborhood, the Pearl District. The park is named for former mayor Vera Katz and is owned by the Gerding Theater/ Portland Center Stage. Image: Vera Katz Park (Source: atul666 Flickr Photostream ) Vera Katz Park can be described as a "Sustainable Park" by Cranz and Boland's (2004) definition: Sustainable Parks..have traits generally thought to increase the ecological performance of parks. The park improves the ecological performance of the street; it has a bioswale and features drought-tolerant plants. The park performs as a green street , too. Image: Tanner Springs Park Another sustainable/ eco-park in the Pearl District is Tanner Springs Park , a public park managed by Portland Parks & Recreation . The park is named for Tanner Creek and its springs; also, the area around the park used to be Couch Lake. We learned about Tanner Springs Park from the April 2006 issue of Landscape Architect

Bird art & bird-book list

Long an admirer of John James Audubon's paintings of birds, I was pleased with a recent Times article about his legacy. Be sure to view the slideshow . I have a copy of Shelley's 1946 reproductions of original water colors owned by the New York Historical Society. I also own a larger volume of illustrations; a gift for a stint as a researcher with the Library of Congress. Image: Audubon Birds - Donald A. Shelley The Times article presented a short annotated bibliography of bird art books, all published this year: "Humans, Nature and Birds: Science Art From Cave Walls to Computer Screens" - Darryl Wheye; "Birds: The Art of Ornithology" - Jonathan Elphick; "Audubon: Early Drawings" - Richard Rhodes; and "Egg and Nest" - Rosamond Purcell, Linnea S. Hall and Renรฉ Corado. Having not read any of these books - my interest is based on information in the news article - I am most interested in "Egg and Nest." The images of Purcell&#

Reading list: Street trees and urban forests

The dedication in Shade Trees in Towns and Cities (William Solotaroff, 1912) reads, To every town and city dweller this book is earnestly dedicated. Evelyn Herwitz partly dedicated Trees at Risk: Reclaiming an Urban Forest (2001) to ...all the children of Worcester, who will inherit the trees These two books are culled from my proposal bibliography. It is not a comprehensive list, so please add titles in a comment. Republic of Shade: New England and the American Elm (2005) - Thomas J. Campanella Urban Forestry: Planning and Managing Urban Greenspaces (1997) - Robert W. Miller Urban Forest Landscapes (1995) - Gordon A. Bradley, ed. "In F favor of trees" in A Sense of Place, a Sense of Time (1994) - J.B. Jackson Street Trees: A Manual for Municipalities (1993) - Richard D. Schein "Street trees" in The Flight of the Iguana (1988) - David Quammen The Granite Garden: Urban Nature and Human Design (1984) - Anne Whiston Spirn Trees in the City (1977) - Ira Bruce Nadel, Co

Tree Walk: Tree-named streets in Oakland, California

Despite the reference to a land of oaks, Oakland’s streets are not lined with oaks. And depending on the neighborhood, many of its streets are either partially tree-lined or entirely devoid of trees. (The city and community-based tree groups are planting to remedy this situation.) In his 1991 dissertation, Dave Nowak (now a research forester with the US Forest Service), observed that Oakland “only plants 80% of its total street distance.” This has consequences for environmental quality in terms of air and water quality, temperature moderation, stormwater management, and wildlife forage and habitat. It also bears on the livability of the street. Donald Appleyard (1980), widely recognized for his groundbreaking research on the physical and social dimensions of livable streets, wrote that a green street of trees and other vegetation is one of the most popular qualities of residential streets. One of the neighborhoods with low street tree cover is West Oakland. Interestingly, severa

Award: Local creek advocate receives Jefferson Award

Friends of Five Creeks president, Susan Schwartz, was honored with a San Francisco Chronicle Jefferson Award for Public Service. Susan is also on the board of Berkeley Partners for Parks and founded Greening Berkeley Hands On, a restoration partnership between the University of California, Berkeley and Cal Corps. Read the SF Chronicle article. Image: Friends of Five Creeks

Cherokee Purple Tomato and other food tales

An alternate title post could be "Plant of the season: Bountiful, Organic Cherokee Purple Tomato." One four-inch potted tomato plant from a local grocer has yielded many tomatoes. The variety of shapes is notable, too. After heavy rain on Friday, I picked all the ripe tomatoes leaving the green ones on the vine. I am hoping for another big harvest at the end of the week; meteorologists are predicting a week of warm temperatures and full sun. Taking a cue from One-Block Diet and Greenwalks , I would like to share my favorite tomato recipe using tomatoes: Tarte Tatin รก la Tomate (Tomato Tatin) published in "Chocolate & Zucchini: Daily Adventures in a Parisian Kitchen" by Clotilde Dusoulier of the Chocolate & Zucchini blog. The recipe is available at the Doubleday Publishing Group website. Desirous of more garden/ farm tales? Add another recipe to your repertoire: Kurt Michael Friese's Shiitake and Wild Black Walnut Tartare recipe at Grist.org.

News: From garden/ landscape/ design magazines

This week we learned that urban farmer Will Allen, founder of Growing Power , won the prestigious MacArthur Genius Grant for 2008. Another type of urban farmer is in the news - one for hire. The "urban farmer for hire" is the subject of an article in the October issue of Sunset magazine. Companies are located in San Francisco (myfarmsf.com), Portland (yourbackyardfarmer.com), and Seattle (seattleurbanfarmco.com). In July, the New York Times reported on a similar phenomenon on the East Coast. Tess Taylor of Metropolis magazine describes the television mini-series, Architecture School, as not only "architectural education meets urban poverty in a TV series based on a design-build program at Tulane University ," but "the struggle to build and obtain affordable housing turns out to be a natural subject for reality-based drama." Watch for yourself. Metropolis also featured the Humber College Arboretum - another reason to visit Toronto again. We reporte