City Lifts Beekeeping Ban!
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010
The city’s Board of Health has decided to end its decades-long ban on city beekeeping, and allow the honey to flow! Just minutes ago, the AP reported that the movement to legalize bees has succeeded.
Honeybees are non-aggressive, and the very low incidence of bee stings within the city limits convinced the Board to change the rules. Honeybees are great pollinators, and allowing rooftop hives and so forth will be a fantastic boon to the burgeoning urban agriculture movement!
Go bees!
(via Gothamist/AP)
Posted in Food, New York City, Organic Farming | Permalink
Green from the Inside Out April 19
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010| April 19, 2010 | ||
| 6:00 pm | to | 8:30 pm |
Green Your Home from the Inside Out!
Monday, April 19th, 6 pm – 8:30 pm
74 Trinity Place (Trinity Church)
Parlor Room, 2nd Floor
Solar One, in partnership with GrowNYC, presents Green from the Inside Out on Monday, April 19th from 6-8:30pm at 74 Trinity Place (Trinity Church) in the Parlor Room. This event gives coop and condo owners, building managers, landlords, and tenants the tools, resources, and information they need to green their multifamily building through presentations on recycling, energy efficiency, and rooftop possibilities for multifamily buildings in New York City. Exhibitors of green products and services will also be present to answer technical questions.
Please RSVP to Celia Salgado at 212-505-6050 or celia@solar1.org.
PRESENTATION DETAILS:
A Survey of Solar Energy Roof Applications for NYC: Solar Thermal, Photovoltaics, Green Roofs and White Roofs
In this workshop Solar One will introduce, define and discuss the economic and quality of life implications of three solar rooftop applications that have considerable promise in the five borough area: solar thermal technology, photovoltaics and white roofs.
Combating Rising Energy Costs with Energy Efficiency for Multifamily Buildings
Find out how to reduce fuel and utility costs while improving resident comfort and building performance. Solar One’s NYSERDA Energy $mart Communities Coordinator will present cost-effective ways for residential building owners and managers to make lighting, appliances, heating and cooling more energy efficient. Learn about the government and utility incentives that are available for your building, as well as the Community Preservation Corporation’s new Neighborhood Energy Loan Program that provides financing for retrofitting multi-family apartment buildings for energy efficiency.
Navigating NYC’s Recycling Landscape
Hear about new recycling laws and old misconceptions. Find out how to avoid fines, improve your recycling program and get your tenants to recycle. Learn about other ways to reduce waste, recycle more and help make NYC a little greener. GrowNYC (formerly the Office of Recycling Outreach and Education) is a program of the Council on the Environment of New York City.
Free event! Refreshments will be served.
Vendors will be available to answer any technical questions about energy audits, different roof applications, and recycling.
GREEN FROM THE INSIDE OUT is a product of Solar One, in partnership with the Office of Recycling Outreach and Education. This series was made possible by a grant from the Environmental Protection Agency.
Posted in Energy, Energy $mart Communities, Energy Efficiency, Housing, New York City, Organic Farming, Photovoltaics, Recycling, Renewables, Solar One, Solar One Events, Solar Power, green roofs | Permalink
The Greenest Tree
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Check out these stats from WIRED Magazine comparing
artificial trees to the real thing
Posted in Energy Efficiency, Global Warming, Organic Farming, Pollution | Permalink
2009 Solar-Powered Film Series Continues for Second Week
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009It looks like the weather will hold and the films will go on as scheduled this weekend! For those of you who have not memorized the schedule yet:
Thurs Sept 17: A Sea Change, 2008, 85 mins.
Fri Sept 18: The Garden, 2008, 80 mins.
Sat Sept 19: Burning In the Sun, 2009, 65 mins.
Rain Date for any of the above: Sun Sept 20
For trailers and descriptions, please visit http://solar1.org/events/film.
Posted in Energy, Film, Food, Global Warming, Organic Farming, Photovoltaics, Pollution, Water | Permalink
Solar-Powered Film Series: “The Garden”
Friday, September 11th, 2009| September 18, 2009 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 11:00 pm |
Friday September 18th
Short: Hawthorne Valley Farm (from From Elegance to Earthworms)
Feature: The Garden
An Academy Award-nominee, The Garden follows the plight of the farmers who care for a fourteen-acre community garden at 41st and Alameda in South Central Los Angeles. Established to promote healing after the devastating L.A. riots in 1992, the South Central Farmers have since created a miracle farm in one of the country’s most blighted neighborhoods but are now challenged by bulldozers that are poised to level their oasis.
Speakers: Juventino Avila & Stacey Murphy
Juventino Avila, Co-owner and Chef of Get Fresh Table and Market, entered his first professional kitchen in 1995. He began his career as a line cook for Nuevo Latino pioneer Douglas Rodriguez at Patria, which was rated three stars by the New York Times, but received his formal training afterwards at Peter Kump’s School of Culinary Arts (now the Institute of Culinary Education) in New York City. As an instructor at the Institute of Culinary Education [ICE] he had the opportunity to work alongside top chefs like Diana Kennedy and attend seminars with food science writer Harold McGee and the father of molecular gastronomy Hervé This.
Eating exclusively from NYC’s Greenmarkets for two years reconnected Stacey Murphy to food production and led her to question what kind of agricultural was possible in a city as dense as NYC. She entered BK Farmyards in the Buckminster Fuller Challenge as a way to combine all of her passions and envision an urban agricultural system where everyone eats well. She hopes to stimulate new possibilities in our failing food system through partnerships with the city, developers, and homeowners.
Posted in Film, Food, Organic Farming, Solar One Events | Permalink
Black Swallowtail at Solar One
Monday, August 17th, 2009
In the herb garden just outside of Solar One, we spotted 4 Black Swallowtail caterpillars. The were munching on the seedlings of last years dill plant.
At first glance we thought the caterpillars were Monarch caterpillars only because they are the only caterpillars we ever see in that garden, and from a distance they have similar stripes. But on closer inspection we noticed that they were definitely not Monarch caterpillars, nor were they on the correct host plant. These caterpillars were on our dill plants which are one of the host plants for the Black Swallowtail along with carrots, parsley, Queen Anne’s Lace, and a few other species.
The Black Swallowtail starts its life as a cream colored egg, it then goes through 5 larval instars and then forms its chrysalis (cocoon). After the chrysalis it emerges as an adult Black Swallowtail Butterfly.
The instars are different stages of growth the larva goes through to reach its mature size. The first two instars the larva or caterpillar is brown with a white band in the middle of its body. The following 3 instars the caterpillar is light green with black bands that have yellow dots on them (as shown above). It is the larval stage that these insects do most of their eating, in fact is seems like they never stop!
When the caterpillar enters the pupal stage, the time it forms it’s chrysalis, it begins the process of metamorphosis. This is when it changes shape from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Depending on the time of year the pupal stage can last from 8-12 days (if formed in early summer) or it can over winter (if formed in late summer) and emerge 8-9 months later. The time of year also determines the color of the chrysalis; green in summer brown in winter.
It seems as though we may have to wait till next year to see the beautiful Black Swallowtail butterflies emerge from their chrysalides. In a few days these caterpillars are going to form their chrysalides, they seem to be in the 5th instar now.
Check back with us on our flickr account @ solaronenyc for updated photos of the caterpillars, chrysalides and hopefully the butterflies.
Posted in Education, Food, Organic Farming, Solar One, Stuyvesant Cove Park | Permalink
Green Renter: Dispatches from the White House Organic Farm Project. With Daniel Bowman Simon, The White House Organic Farm Project.
Thursday, April 16th, 2009| May 4, 2009 | ||
| 7:00 pm | to | 8:30 pm |
Last year, Daniel Bowman Simon began The White House Organic Farm Project (TheWhoFarm), a quixotic quest to petition the winner of the 2008 presidential election to grow food on the White House lawn. After WaitingForApples, a solar-powered publicity stunt held outside of Apple’s flagship store on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, Daniel and his friend Casey traveled across twenty-five states and ultimately to nation’s capital on an upside-down school bus with a rooftop vegetable garden. Everywhere they went they talked to folks of all walks to raise awareness about the White House’s edible landscape potential, and gathered heaps of signatures in support of the project. As improbable as their vision may have seemed at the outset, it is in fact, in both spirit and objective, not unlike what has actually come to pass since the White House’s current occupent has taken up residence. On March 20th, with the help of a class of DC elementary school students First Lady Michelle Obama broke ground on an 1,100 square foot vegetable garden at The White House. Since her announcement, the First Lady of California and the Mayor of Baltimore have announced plans for their own vegetable gardens.
In this presentation Daniel will share a colorful account of his experiences on the road in 2008, discuss what motivated him to pursue the project in the first place, and talk about his most recent (and more local) agrarian ambitions: a small vegetable garden at New York’s City Hall.
RSVP/Contact: greenrenter@solar1.org/212 505 6050
Posted in Organic Farming, Solar One Events | Permalink
