My blogging semester

For the past semester I have posted a blog about growing green every week. This was a weekly assignment for The Cat Scan class. I was very new to blogging in the beginning but after four months of it I feel that I have grown more accustomed to it.

Blogging was just like writing a story for me. I tried to research topics I thought were interesting. Writing anything green, let alone writing about green agriculture, food, etc., was a topic I was completely unfamiliar with. I never knew half of the stuff I know today thanks to my blog. I also talked to many interesting and environment conscious people.

My favorite blog was one I wrote on the Santa Cruz Farmers Market. This market was nationally recognized so I became curious about it. One Thursday, I went to the market with a writing a blog in mind. I ended up meeting wonderful people selling local and unique products as well as people buying fresh and local produce and herbs. I ended up meeting a woman from the Tohono O'odham reservation. She worked for the food coop farm there. I ended up getting her contact information and I got to tour the farm. I also got to write a story about it with my friend Sara Borzatta. It was one of the coolest experiences I had.

My blog and The Cat Scan have broadened my awareness of living green. Although I do not live the greenest of lifestyle, I plan to get better at it thanks to the work I did this semester. I have gained more knowledge of what is going regarding the environment. I am more aware of what has been going on in the Tucson community, which is a direct result from my soon-to-be journalism degree and this class.

I am a firm believer that anything you do, even if it is the most minute thing, makes a difference. The gradual steps will eventually lead to bigger and better steps to help make a difference in saving the environment and the earth.

I would like to thank my peers and my professor, Jay Rochlin, for teaching me what I know today and an unforgettable last semester at the University of Arizona.

Take this quiz, Consumer Consequences, to see how many earths you need to live your lifestyle now.

Some photos to recap my semester:

Charm me with eco-friendly flowers anytime!

I never really thought twice about buying flowers until now. Why, you ask? Well, I had heard about unfair labor conditions in other countries like Columbia or the Carribean like with the flower of love, the rose, from a family friend. According to Rose Trade and the Environment, in Columbia 80 percent of the 80,000 people in the flower industry are women. They work in hazardous environments like hot greenhouses which cause medical problems like headaches, nausea, skin and finger nail infections due to pesticides and more, according to Rose Trade and Environment. Now those are some interesting statistics. It's amazing that such a beautiful smelling plant has an ugly background.

Aside from the harsh labor conditions that go along with the flower market, people are concerned with purchasing flowers that do not harm the environment. Surprisingly, there are many online florists who sell eco-friendly, organic, and sustainable flowers.

Veriflora is a certification program for sustainable flowers and potted plants. This program guarantees that these plants are produced in an "environmentally and socially responsible manner. The Veriflora certification is conducted by third party affiliate, Scientific Certification Systems. According to SCS, Veriflora "recognizes organic as the top tier in crop production practices. At the same time, it certifies measurable aspects of environmental and social performance that extend well beyond organic."

Here are some of Veriflora's standards that flower farmers must follow:
-sustainable crop production
-resource conservation and energy efficiency
-fair labor practices
-community benefits
-product quality, safety, and purity

Organic Boutique, founded in January 2001, sells flowers that are certified USDA Certified Organic and Veriflora certified. Their goal is to protect the environment and sell flowers that are naturally grown without pesticides.

On their Web site, you can browse through lots of flowers, plants, and wreaths. They had roses, lilies, or an Adopt-A-Minefield Peace wreath. Next to each item you select, the flower or plant's standard is displayed like organic, Veriflora, or Biodynamic, so you know what you are buying.

I think the more conscious and informed we are when it comes to growing plants, flowers, or whatever, we will make better more environmentally and socially safe decisions. When February 14 rolls around, note that Organic Boutique delivers in 48 states.

Compost for a better garden

Compost is organic material that can be used as a soil amendment or as a medium to grow plants.
-U.S. EPA

Composting in New Jersey was as common as mowing the lawn in my old neighborhood. Eleven years later, I still remember when my next door neighbors put a rotating compost up in the woods behind their house. The compost bin was a large cylinder that had four legs to hold it up. It was a dark green color which allowed it to blend right into the scenery. On one part of the cylinder there was a latched opening where the composting materials could go in. On the front part a handle protruded out so one could easily rotate the cylinder of compost. My neighbors would put lots of stuff in that thing like tree branches and leftover food. They would use the compost for their shrubs, landscaping, and garden. Sadly, my family never had a rotating compost bin. My dad would just throw all of the remains after he pruned the shrubs and trees in a pile in the woods.

One thing I noticed after living in Tucson is that not many people in my neighborhood have compost bins. Maybe they are not as common in the desert? My friend Jessica's mom just bought a rotating compost bin and guess what, they live ten minutes away so my assumption must not be 100 percent valid. She explained to me that there are so many things that could be composted that we throw away everyday. Banana peels, apple cores, leftover food scraps, biodegradable products, desert brush. Jessica's mom told me you could compost all of it. According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), 24 percent of waste is yard trimmings and food residuals. Wow, that is a lot of waste that could be composted!


Although I do not know a lot about composting, I have been inspired to buy a compost bin for my family, maybe for Christmas! I don't know how much they would appreciate it but if they knew they would be living a greener lifestyle by incorporating composting into their lives, maybe they would learn to accept it!

Here are some tips when it comes to composting according to Garden Guides and the EPA:
DO compost
newspaper
tea leaves
coffee grounds
kitchen waste
hair and fur
dryer and vacuum cleaner lint
fruits and vegetables
animal manure

DON'T Compost


dairy products
fats, greases, lards, oils
meat or fish bones
sawdust
wood ashes
diseased or insect ridden plants

GardenGuides.com also has a troubleshooting section for composting like if your compost smells or if it is not heating up.

Here are some helpful Web sites to check out if you are interested in composting:
EPA Composting Wastes
How to Compost
GardenGuides
Compost Guide

Crucial Coffee Choices

Coffee beans are in my cabinet. I love the way they smell, taste and look. Hazelnut, decaffeinated, house blend. Those are just some of the types of coffee I have. I have to be honest, I am not the biggest coffee person, but I do enjoy the occasional cup but after talking with another journalism student about Fair Trade coffee, I decided to do some research on it.

The first thing I did was take a look at the bags of coffee beans in my cabinet. My Illy Fine Grind espresso and Starbuck's House blend had no sign, stamp, or seal of it being fair trade. Oh, no.

"Fair Trade is a trading partnership, based on dialogs, transparency and respect, that seeks greater equity in international trade. It contributes to sustainable development by offering better trading conditions to, and securing the rights of, marginalized producers and workers – especially in the South."
-International Federation for Alternative Trade

Basically, coffee farmers receive more money for their product. I also discovered that it is not just money that the farmers receive, Fair Trade deals with fair working conditions, environmental sustainability, direct trade, and community development, according to Fair Trade Certified.

To view the general standards for Fair Trade products, click here.

I learned that Fair Trade is so important because there are thousands of farmers all over the world that live in poverty because they do not earn enough money for their products. Transfair USA, the only third party Fair Trade certified, certifies tea and herbs, cocoa and chocolate, fresh fruit, sugar, rice, and spices.

To find Fair Trade products in your town, click here.

I found some interesting and recent articles about Fair Trade. Click here to read them.

I also found this great Web site, Global Exchange, where you can actually experience Fair Trade farming by taking a Global Exchange reality tour. You can go to Guatemala for a couple weeks to work with a Fair Trade coffee farmer.

If you want to get involved advocating Fair Trade at your University, check out the United Students For Fair Trade
. They try to get schools to sell Fair Trade coffee.

Help support local farmers by buying Fair Trade products. I know I will.

Sustainable Salmon

Sustainability is a term that I hear almost everyday. Most of the time, it involves local initiatives like water, farming, food, minerals, etc. Today when I heard the word it did not involve any one of these terms. It involved salmon. I discovered that local restaurant, Acacia, serves sustainable salmon. This sparked my curiosity and I decided to do some research on sustainable salmon.



One of the main principles in sustainable salmon farming is to protect the native salmon populations, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Sustainable salmon are grown mainly in pens in the ocean around the northwest part of the United States. I found that Alaska was a hot spot when it comes to sustainable salmon. What the salmon are fed seems like a crap shoot to me. Some sustainable salmon farm Web sites some said they feed their salmon a vegetable based feed or a fish based feed made of forage. Forage is a fish that humans don't eat because it is really small and bony. Some fish farmers want to keep that fish plentiful so "feed manufacturers are developing new feeds that will replace some of the fish-based ingredients in salmon feed with ingredients from other sources such as vegetables – yet still provide high quality, nutritious farmed salmon,"according to New Brunswick Salmon Growers Association.

One of the essential functions of sustainable salmon farming is that the salmon have escapement routes. These allow the salmon to spawn. Since salmon spawn in fresh water, farmers must allow them to go spawn inland. Salmon only spawn once and the amount of salmon allowed to spawn are regulated. This is a healthier method of fish farming as opposed to the fish farms that keep the salmon hostage, creating an unhealthy environment for them. Farmed fish are harmful to the environment because they pollute the water with their leftover food and feces and they can breed with wild fish and disrupt their natural habitat, according to Fishonline.


"The point of sustainable salmon management activities is to keep the full range of salmon resources productive to the full extent possible. Protection of salmon production in the short-term takes the form of limiting harvests to allow ach the spawning grounds. Protecting the salmon production in the long-term means protecting the spawning and rearing habitats, including the entire salmon bearing ecosystem, from degradation . Habitat protection takes the form of land use planning and regulation, including regulating natural resource extraction activities."
-Alaska Department of Fish and Game

In my opinion, sustainable fish farming should be utilized more often by fish farmers, especially since farmed fish are not as good to eat as fresh and they harm the environment. Also, since wild fish are becoming scarcer and scarcer, this would be a life-saving alternative to the wild fish.

The National Environmental Trust offers a customer petition for sustainable farmed salmon on their Web site. Click here to fill one out.

FishWise is a Web site that provides information on sustainable fishing and healthy seafood for you and me.

Cucurbita pepo= Pumpkin

This week I decided to blog about pumpkins because I had heard the word "pumpkin" mentioned at least one hundred times last week. Since it is almost Halloween and Thanksgiving, the pumpkin rave has started. I'm going to take a look at how to grow pumpkins organically and the uses for our large orange friends.

Growing
Have you ever picked pumpkins at a local farm for Halloween? From the time I could walk, my family and I would go pumpkin picking every year before Halloween. I specifically remember tripping and falling through fields of pumpkins in search of the perfectly-shaped pumpkin. The vines and stems were prickly and thick so the farm guide would have to cut it for me. Out of plain curiosity, I've decided to give you information on how to grow pumpkins according to Pumpkin Growing Tips.

If you want to have your pumpkins by Halloween, Pumpkin Growing Tips suggests you plant your seeds in May or June.

Plant pumpkins in soil that is not humid (which would not be a problem in surrounding areas of Tucson, Ariz.). The soil has to have a pH of 6.0 and have rich, well draining soil. Pumpkin Growing tips suggests using compost.

A large piece of land, preferably farmland, would be most suitable for growing pumpkins but a garden will do. They are vines and need a lot of space. Pumpkin Growing Tips suggests planting pumpkins on mounds, four to five feet apart.

Pumpkins don't need a lot of water. They can be watered infrequently but prefer a good, deep watering once in a while.

Shade is important to allowing the pumpkin to grow to its maximum. Vine leaves help protect the budding pumpkins from the sun but putting up things to shade them helps a lot. Pumpkin Growing Tips recommends using burlap.

If growing them doesn't interest you, maybe going to a local farm to pick them will.
Here are some pumpkin patches near Tucson that are open to the public:
Local HarvestThis Web site allows you to search for a pumpkin farm by zip code, city, or state.
Buckelew Farms
Apple Annie's Produce and Pumpkins

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle Pumpkins
Pumpkins have many uses. In my family, we don't just carve the pumpkin to make a jack-o-lantern (Click here for a good example on carving jack-o-lanterns). We bake the seeds and eat them. If you are looking for a more interesting way to eat the pumpkin seeds, try making pumpkin seed brittle. We also make pumpkin pie with them. If you cut the pumpkin in pieces and bake them like you would any other squash, you can blend or food process the pumpkin into puree to use for a pie. Here is a good recipe for pumpkin pie.

Pumpkins not only look festive, they have many other uses. So before you throw your pumpkin away, think about the really great foods you can make with it.

Agriculture & UA Sustainability Week

The University of Arizona's Campus Sustainability enlightens students, faculty, and the community with many questionable resources like energy, water, air quality, and food, that we are starting to hear more and more about in life and in the desert.

Next week, Campus Sustainability will be holding Sustainability Week from Wednesday,October 24 to Wednesday, October 31. After checking out the Campus Sustainability Web site, I came across a Web site about sustainable agriculture in Arizona.

The UA Cooperative Extension (an outreach program from the UA College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) and the National Resources Conservation Service work with farmers in Arizona to, according to UA Cooperative Extension:
-improve profits
-protect the environment
-enhance the quality of the lives of farmers and ranchers

Sustainable agriculture is a system that can sustain itself without destroying the land, environment and people, according to Cooperative Extension. Cooperative Extension helps farmers reduce the amount of non organic input. The general goal of the UA Cooperative Extension is to improve the lives of the communities by offering informal education to all who are interested, according to Cooperative Extension. Lately, sustainable agriculture has been a concern due to foods that have preservatives, additives, chemical fertilizers, pesticides (which have been detected in groundwater in the Midwest), according to Cooperative Extension.

In my opinion, sustainability is important to incorporate into our lifestyle not only because of the reasons listed above, but because of the rise of produce imports from other U.S. states and countries. I had never felt strongly about this until I went to Italy. All of the produce I ate was produce that was in season. I was not eating watermelon during the winter, like you can in the United States. Plus, the produce there had more flavor and it was not perfect. I don't know how sustainable the Italians are when it comes to agriculture, but from what I saw in markets and grocery stores, most of the produce was from a town in Italy.

I think that a sustainable community prove more efficient in the long run. To be able to survive off of the desert would be a large-scale challenge but I think it is something that needs to be supported more. I think that Sustainability week, the UA College of Agriculture, organizations like Tucson Community Supported Agriculture, and farmers markets around town help spread the word of living a healthier life, sustainably.

Click here to view this really awesome Web site about Controlled Environment Agriculture. You can also see tomatoes growing LIVE!


Next week, check out my blog about where to go in Tucson to shop for sustainable produce.