Natural lawns gaining support

A legal battle in Ottawa has advanced the cause of moving away from traditional water- and chemical-intensive lawns toward more sustainable approaches.

Some recently found items of interest

With all the recent attention given to the push for legalizing chickens in the city, This Magazine’s recent article may be of interest: “Be an urban chicken farmer in 5 easy steps”

“Square foot gardening” presents an approach to growing food that can really simplify things — making gardening much more approachable for people new to it, or just too busy to deal with more complicated setups. The CBC has a useful story on this approach: Another take on urban gardening.

The Eat Well Guide is an online database of local, sustainable and organic food sources (farmers, shops, community gardens, restaurants, organizations, etc.) for Canada and the U.S. They don’t have any listings for Calgary, yet, but you can add listings. Another spot to promote our local resources.

Citizens Market “is a non-profit user-generated website for ethical consumption.”

SPIN Farming — urban backyards for commercial organic farming

SPIN Farming is a business and growing model that converts multiple residential backyards into a commercial organic farm. Benefits include local food production (100-mile diet type stuff), organic growing, energy consumption reduction, community economic development, and neighbourhood quality of life improvements.

REAP Calgary has an article on SPIN Farming.