COOL (the Coalition of Organic Landscape Professionals http://www.organiclandscapers.org/index.html) and Seattle Tilth (http://www.seattletilth.org/) are presenting the compelling documentary “A Chemical Reaction” as part of an afternoon event at Lake Washington Technical College in Kirkland on Saturday, February 20th, from 2-6pm. The event will also feature keynote speaker Paul Tukey, the nationally-known gardening host who is the executive producer and narrator of the film. Tukey is also the founder of the regional gardening magazine “People, Places & Plants”, author of best-seller The Organic Lawn Care Manual, and founder of SafeLawns.org, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting natural lawn care and grounds maintenance. The event will feature displays and resources from The Garden Hotline and several other environmental organizations, books for sale, refreshments, and a question-and-answer session and book-signing with Paul Tukey after the movie screening. Proceeds from this event will be contributed to http://safelawns.org/

The movie addresses the human health hazards of pesticides, and one community’s efforts to ban the use of lawn care chemicals. It tells the story of a doctor whose activism prompted her town in Canada to be the first to ban lawn and garden chemicals in 1991. Since then the provinces of Quebec, Ontario and hundreds of other Canadian municipalities have also passed similar legislation.

For the past several years, Tukey has traveled across the United States and Canada in a relentless quest to tell the Hudson story and urge municipalities to follow suit. “Canadian doctors and the Canadian courts have looked at the toxicity associated with chemical lawn care and have banned these products in much of that nation,” said Tukey, a Maine native who went on to become America’s Horticultural Communicator of the Year in 2006. “Our hope is that people watch the movie and say, ‘Canada has banned these products, why do we still use them in the United States?’” As you well know, this issue is particularly relevant in the Puget Sound region, where chemical fertilizers and pesticides run off into our lakes, rivers, streams, and the sound during each rainfall.

To view a movie trailer, visit www.ChemicalReactionMovie.com

EVENT DETAILS:

Saturday Feb. 20, 2010, from 2:00pm- 6:00pm
Movie screening; reception with film producer; books for sale; free educational resources; door prizes; refreshments
At Lake Washington Technical College
West Building Auditorium, Rm. #404
11605 132nd Avenue NE
Kirkland, WA 98034-8506

Tickets:
$10.00 in advance from www.BrownPaperTickets.com or $15.00 at the door.

Proceeds from ticket sales will be donated to SafeLawns.org
Free parking in the south or west parking lots (follow the sandwich board signs)
Campus map and driving directions: www.lwtc.edu/about/maps/campus

Feb 6 Fruit Varieties for the Pacific NW . 1 – 3 pm.  UW Botanic Gardens.  $20/$15 (members). Sam Benowitz is the owner of Raintree Nursery, a nursery specializing in fruit trees and other edibles. Whether it’s plums, apples, pears, or berries, Sam knows what varieties do best in any particular situation. He will discuss the best fruits for the Northwest, why rootstocks are important, and how to determine how big a tree will grow.

Feb 20 The Art of Espalier. 1 – 4:30 pm. UW Botanic Gardens. $30/$25 (members). Dave Conners, former president of the Seattle Tree Fruit Society, has been training 18 different antique apple varieties on his city-sized lot for more than a decade and has been teaching “The Art of Espalier” at the UW’s Center for Urban horticulture for many years.

Mar 6 Pruning Grape Vines 9 am – noon. Phinney Neighborhood Association and neighboring site with grape vines. $20/$15 (members). Learn to prune and train grape vines and get tips on growing grapes for best production. Larry Davis is a Master Gardener and teaches grape and other fruit production classes for the WSU-King County Master Gardener program.

Mar 20 Planting and Caring for Young Fruit Trees 10 am – noon. Orca School Environmental Learning Center. $20/$15 (members). Find out how and where to plant your new fruit tree and how to keep it healthy. John Reardon, vice president of the Seattle Tree Fruit Society, teaches tree care classes for Plant Amnesty, Seattle Tree Fruit Society and City Fruit.

Fruit tree care classes are also offered by the following organizations. See the City Fruit Calendar at www.cityfruit.org, or their websites for details.

Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle

Friends of Piper’s Orchard

Seattle Tilth

Seattle Tree Fruit Society

Western Washington Fruit Research Foundation

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Offered by City Fruit

Location: Phinney Ridge

10 am – noon

$20/$15 (City Fruit members)

Pruning your fruit tree will improve its health, productivity and appearance. This beginner’s class covers the basics, including pruning tools, reasons for pruning a fruit tree and basic techniques. Instructor Ingela Wanerstrand, Green Darner Garden Design, specializes in edible garden design and coaching and has been pruning fruit trees professionally for 14 years.

Register at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/91245 or send a check with the name and date of the class and your contact information to City Fruit, PO Box 28577, Seattle 98118. After registering, you will receive confirmation and the address of the class. If you can’t afford a class but really want to learn, email us atinfo@cityfruit.org.

Thank you Martin and Mira for hosting the our Sustainable Meeting 2 months in a row. Our meal had a few theme ingredients avocados, potatoes, and salad. Yumm.

Announcements:

>Kitchen Party at the Galvin’s 5 PM. Bring food, songs, poems, stories, Full announcement later.

Meeting

1. Reviewed and explored the the list of guilds, topics, and areas of interest from the last meeting. We focusd on the activities that people showed and interest in leading. There was a lot of interest in having workshops-sharing information lead by Sustainable folks or possibly others. Discussed how we can look at the neighborhood as a whole, and not just each individual property (for example energy systems.)

Built Environment:

Solar Energy: Martin (lead), Dennis, and Michael

>look at solar collectors for hot water – options for Crown Hill

Skills bank:

>Martin (lead) – Dennis and Martin to set up a Wiki on the website.

>Doug provided a consultation on native plants for gardens

Website:

suggestions were made for the following in addition to the skills bank Wiki

- recipe Wiki

- calendar for events

Urban Gardening:

Permaculture – Bert (lead)

Many people are interested in permaculture. The typical permaculture class can be 2 weeks long and include theory as well as designing a project, so Bert proposed to lead a couple of workshops on the design principles of permaculture this spring and then over the next couple of years people can offer workshops on different topics. These topics many that we have been talking about and include composting, planting food gardens and fruit trees, perennials, harvest preservation (drying etc), solar, water systems, and energy efficiency

The 2 design workshops will be before our next two sustainable meetings. Proposed was time 3-7 for the workshops, and 7-8 for the sustainable meeting.

Also discussed childcare options so parents of small kids could attend including, hiring someone to provide childcare and donating to the cost. Decided to leave it open, people can email Bert about childcare needs and what can be worked out.

Next steps

> Bert to put together an announcement regarding the workshops. The announce will include a brief description of permaculture and something about childcare.

>Dates April 26 and June 7. Location to be finalized.

>Bert to identify some reading in preparation for one/both meetings.

New people welcome!
Email Carol with agenda items or questions at carolbarber@comcast.net

New people welcome!
Email Carol with agenda items or questions at carolbarber@comcast.net

Announcements:
1/10/09 – Urban Crop Circle organizing event at Arboretum to see winter gardens. Meet at 9:45 AM @ Loyal Heights to car pool

2/26/09 – CHNA is hosting Tim Gallagher’s presentation on Pacific Coast Trail presentation and slideshow. 7:00 PM @ Abundant Life Church

03/09 – Seattle Green Show. Danielle looking for others who want to volunteer. Jen Smith is interested.

Agenda:
We spent most of the meeting thinking back over the year and a half that we have been together and reviewing where we have been and where we want to go. Following is a list of projects that we have completed, are ongoing, or are in process.

Community/Streets
• Walkable Crown Hill (initiative between Sustainable CH and CHNA) completed tool kit
• Traffic circles on Mary and 12th
• Speed humps on Mary and 14th (complete)
• Speed humps on Mary and 92nd (applied for)
• Block parties on both Mary and 12th.

Special Events
• 2nd Annual Spring Celebration
• 2nd Annual Halloween event
• Green cleaning products class
• Bag making sessions
• Soap making class
• Thanksgiving weekend walk to Carkeek Park with special focus on Salmon run
• Movie nights / local food eating / political discussions
• 2nd Annual Fruit Harvest
• Kitchen Party
• Gorilla Planting (tulips @ corner of 13th and 95th)
• Compost demo (Cheryl)
• Fruit Pruning Demo with several applying what they learned on own fruit trees

Barn Building
• Cobbing events
• Tree removal
• Obadina plant salvage

Website
• Website developed
• Newsletter

Partnership
• Crown Hill Neighborhood Association
• North Seattle Lapidary & Gems
• Scallops
• Sustainable Ballard
• Department of Neighborhoods
• Department of Transportation
• Abundant Life Church
• Neighbors!!

Bert posed the question….what do people feel passionate about in terms of future direction. Here is what came out.
• Acquisition of land/buildings
• Guerilla planting (vacant properties)
• Traffic circle planting
• Solar cooking
• Solar fruit drying
• Perm culture training (Bert has taught classes and would be interested in doing same for CH neighbors)
• Baking Classes
• Salad table making (Martin has hardware cloth that he would donate)
• Sheet mulching
• Vegetable gardening / canning
• Farmer boys’ classes
• Bumble bee boxes
• Mason bee boxes
• Bat boxes
• Knowledge share
• Skill share
• Tool share
• Music making / sing along/ recorder group

ACTION ITEMS
• Need to keep track of attendance at meetings / events to quantify our success in reaching neighbors
• Need training on how to update website
• Bert to write letters to neighbors who have unused fruit trees to see if they would let SCH prune them and harvest them in the fall and donate to our fruit harvest program

Prepared by Jen Smith 206-898-0191

For those attending the potluck, people are encouraged to bring or prepare foods that are local or as local as possible. Let’s not be fascists about it, but be thoughtful about what you make or bring, and use it as an opportunity to understand where our food comes. Come prepared to talk about what you learned from the process.

The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
The DVD focuses on Cuba’s transition from an industrial petroleum-based society to a sustainable society, as a result of their loss of petroleum when their source, the Soviet Union, collapsed.

The goals of this film are to give hope to the developed world as it wakes up to the consequences of being hooked on oil, and to lift American’s prejudice of Cuba by showing the Cuban people as they are. The filmmakers do this by having the people tell their story on film. It’s a story of their dedication to independence and triumph over adversity, and a story of cooperation and hope. Several Cubans expressed the belief that living on an island, with its natural boundaries, breeds awareness that there are limits to natural resources.

“Everyone who is concerned about Peak Oil needs to see this film. Cuba survived an energy famine during the 1990′s, and how it did so constitutes one of the most important and hopeful stories of the past not just of individual achievement, but one of the collective mobilization of an entire society to meet an enormous challenge.”
Richard Heinberg, author of The Party’s Over, Powerdown
RUNNING TIME: 53 minutes
RELEASED IN 2006

Flashlight Treasure Hunt at 6:30pm
Use your expert map reading skills to locate hidden treasure!

Clever Costume Contest
Prizes will be awarded to those in costumes created from items discovered at home. Mass-produced, disposable costumes will be admired…..but not rewarded!

Bring a potluck dish for all to share

Musical Entertainment Will Be Provided by our locally grown Bucket Band, and will offer plenty of opportunity to make music of your own.

This is a joint effort between Sustainable Crown Hill and the North Seattle Lapidary and Mineral Club