SECIA Student Group Earth Day Plans- Come join the ride!

The SECIA U of MN Student Group has received a grant to do Earth Day celebrations during the month of April. Come and join the Ride (Facebook event) or check out these other April 22nd happenings.


MIMO at U Spring Jam on Campus

Stop by and visit the SECIA Student Group on the University's Coffman Plaza during Spring Jam! The group will have information about SECIA's the Move-In, Move-Out (MIMO) initiative, other green activities, and give-aways. Also, registration for the MIMO bike ride will be located here. (12PM-4PM)


Gardening and More at SECIA

From 12PM-5PM, visitors to the SECIA office can learn about gardening information, solar ovens, green cleaners and more. Further, we will have hands on demonstration on how you can make your own GrowBox for your deck or patio (2PM-4PM). The MIMO bike ride can be joined from here at about 4:45pm.



Group Bike Ride & MIMO Kick-off

Bring your bike and participate in a group ride that leaves SECIA at 4:45 PM and arrives at the U of M ReUse Center at 883 29th Ave SE around 5PM. The route follows 15th Ave SE and Como Ave SE and can be picked up along the way. The U of MN ReUse Center has generously agreed to host our MIMO Free Store in May/June. Come along to see where it's located and be treated to FREE non-alcoholic Como MIMOsas and other snacks! You can pre-register (not required) with alison@comogreenvillage.info or at the MIMO booth earlier that day at the University's Coffman Plaza.


These events sponsored MPCA, University of MN Student Activities Grants Initiatives, Neighborhood Revitalization Program

Metro Blooms to Host Twenty $10 Raingarden Workshops in 2010

Once again in 2010, Metro Blooms will offer low-cost raingarden workshops in the Twin Cities Metro Area and in Southern Minnesota. 4400 people have attended these workshops since 2005. Learn more at metroblooms.org.

Participants will learn the steps involved in designing and installing a raingarden. Hands-on assistance is available at some workshops, and workshop participants are eligible to receive low-cost on-site consultations from Metro Blooms Landscape Design Assistants.

Workshops will be offered in six different locations in Minneapolis as well as in Bloomington, Blue Earth, Champlin, Chanhassen, Chaska, Crystal, Fairmont, Plymouth, Robbinsdale, Saint Louis Park, Savage, Shorewood and Wayzata. SECIA' s own storm water program have brought such workshops nearby the neighborhood. This year SE Como neighbors will need to travel a bit more to get to workshop, however closer locations include Bedlam Theater, Audubon Park, and Longfellow Rec Center.

Details and registration at metroblooms.org or 651-699-2426.

Treasuring Waste: MIMO & Yogurt Cup Collection

Americans are hooked on garbage, 4.5 pounds of it generated per day per person according to EPA 2008 estimates (pdf). Sadly, 60-85% of that is recyclable! Somehow, our society tolerates throwing away materials that can be reused or regenerated into new products. Garbage is a resource, which does not need to include waste-to-energy power plants. Grass-roots neighborhood level activities can urge the reversing of this trend. For example in SE Como, this neighborhood is trying to reduce the amount of reusable furnishings lost to the trash during college move-out schedules in fall and spring. SECIA has coined this as "MIMO" or move-in/move-out. The organization has a grant from the MPCA to work on a pilot that redistributes usable items left on curbs and alleys. The program will feature a re-use "store" that will be set-up during key weeks when college students are on the move.

Further, in the Midway area of St. Paul, neighbors are setting up yogurt cup collection, another example of reuse! The collected cups will be made into seed starting kits. In both cases, community members are deciding to take the issue of waste into their own hands and find a better solution. Presently this is the answer to institutionalized waste; personal choice and action! Here is the yogurt cup collection announcement:

HMEG Announces a Yogurt Cup Re-Use Collection in the Midway at Shirtz Unlimited on Snelling Avenue. The Hamline Midway Environmental Group (HMEG), in partnership with the Recycling Association of Minnesota (RAM), invites you to recycle your large and small yogurt cups (with lids) to reduce waste! HMEG has arranged a neighborhood drop-off location at Shirtz Unlimited, a locally owned shirt screening business, on Snelling Avenue near the intersection of Minnehaha Avenue. The yogurt cup recycling is sponsored by the Recycling Association of Minnesotawww.recycleminnesota.org). The yogurt cups will be re-used to make seed starter kits for sale to the public. To recycle your yogurt cups and cottage cheese containers bring them to the Shirtz Unlimited store (755 Snelling Ave N, 651-645-3311). The pilot re-use program accepts only CLEAN single serving (6oz) and 32oz containers for recycling. Don't forget the lids! Please, no Yoplait brand or six-pack containers.

Holiday Lights: the Broken, the Rundown and the Weary

How does an Eco-sensitive household handle holiday decorations? It is a question that can haunt. The plastic light-up crèche, blow-up NASCAR Santa, laughing-motion-detecting Christmas tree all require resources to make and just what to do with them once they break? Like for many folks, reducing consumption, reusing/re-purposing, and using natural items for winter displays are becoming more common at our house.

At least broken light strings can now be recycled, thanks to Recycling Association of Minnesota (RAM). Ram has created a program where the collected light strings are disassembled and each part is recycled for a different purpose .

The broken light strings are received at PPL Industry's job training facility where employees there disassemble the strings. Each element of the light string is directed to its own recycling process, for example the bulbs are recycled into tiles, asphalt and fiberglass, and the metal in the cords is captured in another process. A video of the process can be seen at this link (wav) . Since early December, 15,000 pounds of light strings have been diverted from landfill or the garbage burner through this program.

Two neighborhood groups around the Twin Cities are making sure collections are local and easy to get to. All locations for light drop off outside the neighborhood can be found on the RAM webpage. Below, list the sites arranged by neighborhood groups in SE Como, Minneapolis and the Midway of St. Paul.

HMEG Announces Holiday Light Recycling Now Available in the Midway at Hamline Hardware

The Hamline Midway Environmental Group (HMEG) invites you to recycle your incandescent light strings to reduce waste! The light recycling is sponsored by RAM and drop-off locations can be found at Snyder Drugs (coupon incentive available) and Como Zoo. However, to make light recycling even more convenient for Hamline Midway residents, HMEG has arranged a drop off location right in the Hamline Midway neighborhood.

To recycle your unusable light strings, just bring them to Hamline Hardware store (755 Snelling Ave N St Paul, MN 55104, 651-646-4049) from now until January 10th.


Holiday Light Recycling Comes to SECIA

The SECIA staff noticed that the options for recycling broken incandescent light strings were inconvenient to SE Minneapolis residents. To remedy this, the SECIA office signed on to be a drop-off location for broken holiday lights. Light recycling fits right into the Como Green Village waste reduction efforts. The light recycling is sponsored by RAM and its appropriate that there is a drop-off in SE Como because the lights are disassembled right in the neighborhood! PPL Industry's job training facility on 15th Ave SE eventually receives the broken light strings and employees there take apart the strings.

To recycle your unusable light strings, just bring them to SECIA's office from now until January 10th. Do note, the office will be closed between Dec 24th through January 4th for the holidays. It is recommended that you call ahead to make sure a staff person will be there. Some evening hours are available.

Celebration of all Things Tomato

This is the time of year to revel in the tomatoes. The last hanging-on days before the first frost brings it all to an end. The colors, flavors, shapes and sizes seem endless.

In SE Como, the annual Tomato Tastin' Experience exploits the annual tomato bounty. Here, attendees of the Como Cookout get a chance to taste dozens of different tomato varieties side-by-side and then vote for their favorites. This year's Como Cookout is on September 20th from 2-5pm at Van Cleve Park.

Winning results from the past years' tastings are found on the Como Green Village website. It is a handy list for future seed ordering.

Recently, I discovered this new book that profiles hundreds of tomatoes and provides beautiful images too. Check out The Heirloom Tomato: From Garden to Table: Recipes, Portraits, and History of the World's Most Beautiful Fruit by By Amy Goldman, Victor Schrager.

The Natives Are Restless

Here is a new favorite for my "blue" garden- Spotted Bee Balm, or Monarda punctata L. Thanks to Hannah from the Friends of Horton Park for suggesting this wacky-yet-beautiful native for the sandy soil here. As I was checking it out today, I saw a number of different wasps and bees doing their thing. It reminded me of my Leadplant earlier in the season. I saw 4 or 5 different types of bees on that native plant at one time (they move fast, so its a bit hard to count). The pollinator sightings would please the Horton Park community gardeners, many whom have taken a course on native pollinators this season.

My winged visitors highlight an important reason to plant natives in your landscapes- to provide food sources for our native insects. As we use more and more cultivars (like the petunias on the left of the monarda) the options for native pollinators become slim which impacts the foodweb that relies on those insects. The diversity of insects can also be on your side when it comes to bad bugs.

Just last night, as I was with a group of community gardeners in SE Como brainstorming ideas for a rain garden at Como Corner Community Garden (a project sponsored by SECIA and Mississippi Watershed Management Organization) and one of the gardeners had a book in hand by Douglas W. Tallamy called "Bringing nature home". As we envisioned raingardens, cisterns, dry creek beds, the group also insisted upon native plants and "ugly bugs". The word is spreading about the important role these insects have in the greenspaces of our cities and suburbs. Something the Horton Park community gardeners would cheer on.

Hanging it all out

This time of year means gardens galore, so to change it up, here is a non-gardening post-Clotheslines!

I admit it, I really enjoy hanging laundry. Enough that it causes me pause before passing the task onto my kids. Hanging clothes on the line is a calm, repetitive, hypnotic task which cools me down on a hot day. I can ponder, watch birds or just enjoy the process of getting our clothes up in the sun to dry at no carbon cost. We run about 1 load of clothes per day, and from April to October, we use our line as the primary clothes drier. I feel a bit for allergic households who cannot use a clothesline because their clothes bring in allergens. Automatic clothes driers are a typical household's second biggest energy using appliance (behind refrigerators). Air drying is free in both dollars and on carbon footprints.

In SE Como Minneapolis, the neighborhood association SECIA, raised awareness of energy consumption of driers by distributing free clotheslines to residents in 2007. It was a very popular program sponsored by the City of Minneapolis climate Change micro grants and really could be repeated every year with the high resident turnover due to proximity to the U of MN. The neighborhood association distributed mini retractable clotheslines to 78 residents.

Numbers cited for energy conservation due to clothesline use include a 3.3% reduction of CO2 if everyone used a line for half a year, and 5.8% of a household's energy demands can be due to an electric clothes drier.

Rain Barrel Time!

The rain barrel is in action here at the homestead. Most of the rainwater I collect is used on my compost piles, ornamental plantings and trees. I would like to add another to my front porch, but first have to install a gutter on that roof. Here is an informative pdf on rain barrels written by the U of MN Extension Service.

Using collected rainwater is very satisfying, knowing your landscape can be sustained by what falls from the sky. They do require their own attention however. Making sure the barrel's overflow doesn't impact your foundation, making sure your barrel doesn't grow mosquitoes, and getting your barrel drained before the next big rain are examples of such attention. Some of this can be taken care of through your design, but if this type of maintenance is not for you, then installing a rain garden is a good alternative. The costs for a rain garden will be higher (unless you get financial support from your watershed) but its maintenance is less.

In Saint Paul, the Hamline Midway Coalition and the Hamline Midway Environment Group is co-sponsoring a ‘build your own’ rain barrel workshop for neighbors on Tuesday , May 19th. A $30 fee covers all materials, including a recycled barrel and hardware. To reserve a spot, please contact at 651-646-1986. Space is limited.

In Minneapolis, as a follow-up to the rain barrel sale at Green Village Day, SECIA is also starting a waiting list for SE Como residents interested in receiving a rain barrel that SECIA interns will construct for only $15 using recycled 55 gallon drums. Quantities are limited. Contact the office at 612-676-1731 for more info.

Captured stormwater protects the Mississippi river!

Como Green Village Day on Saturday April 18th- All invited

Celebrate the beginning of spring, Earth Week AND the first year of a successful Como Green Village with SECIA on

When: April 18^th, 2009 11:30 AM – 2:30 PM, rain or shine!

Where: Van Cleve Park and Van Cleve Recreation Center (here)

What: Como Green Village Day

• Como Eco-Exchange, a re-use event where residents in the neighborhood will trade and barter used goods;

• Bicycle Auction, a rehabbed bike auction supplying very affordable green transportation to students and residents;

• Green Talk, a round of demonstrations and presentations from local experts and organizations, including rain barrel painting!

• Rain Gardens, information about this beautiful way to improve water quality and the resources available to install yours.

• Rain Barrels, See how they work and place an order for your low-cost barrel
  

• Resource Fair, organizations, including student groups, exhibit their cause to participants of the event!

The event is sponsored by SECIA, the Southeast Como Improvement Association; the Neighborhood Revitalization Project; The Mississippi Watershed Management Organization; Metro Blooms, and the McKnight Foundation.

Community Gardening season opens in SE Como with a harvest at Como Corner!

From time to time, I will be featuring news from the community gardens I support. Today, its a SE Como perennial garden, where we convened last weekend to move a tree.

Hmmm a harvest on April 4th? How about harvesting rocks? Once again, there is road construction adjacent to Como Corner Community garden. With road construction comes large piles of dirt which happen to contain a lot of rocks, right along the boulevard. So after moving a black hills spruce tree, we hunted for treasure, rock treasure. This community garden was started in 1992, coincidentally using garden bed edgers collected from street construction remnants. Sixteen years later, more edging material is in order, and what could be better than having them turn up in the street?

The official community gardening season is beginning this month. All garden dates are updated at the SECIA calendar. Upcoming dates for April & early May:

• 4/18 at 10 am at Accord Community Garden, (and then have fun at Como Green Village day in Van Cleve Park!)
  
• 4/21 at 6:30 at Como Corner
  
• 4/22 at 6:30pm at Gateway Garden
• 4/26 at 1:30pm at OWLS Community Garden
  
• 5/5 at 6:30 at Como Corner
  
• 5/6 at 6:30pm at Gateway Garden- Paint the Chairs Block Party!
• 5/16 at 10 am at Accord Community Garden
• 5/19 at 6:30 at Como Corner
  
• 5/20 at 6:30pm at Gateway Garden

Is this the year you become a Community Gardener?