March 11-13, 2011

for the Growing Green Spring Urban Agriculture Training!

Registration page is here.

The Massachusetts Avenue Project’s Urban Agriculture Training features many practical, philosophical, and experiential opportunities to learn from MAP’s success with urban, youth centered agriculture.

In addition to witnessing the components of a functional urban farm first hand, such as urban fish farming, composting, and value-added food production, participants will be able to engage and observe many of the successful elements in MAP’s youth training program, Growing Green. Attending the training also means being able to hear from regional experts on food system planning and development, and network with other beginning or established urban farmers, with training at the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus Innovation Center and hands on at Growing Green’s Urban Youth Farm. Only $200, this weekend workshop includes 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, a cocktail reception, and intensive, hands-on training opportunities.

Workshops include

• Moving Local Food Policy Forward with Diane Picard, MAP’s Executive Director
• Introduction to Urban Agriculture with Jesse Meeder, MAP’s Farm Manager
• Aquaponics with Jesse Meeder
• Compost and Worms with Jesse Meeder
• Urban Chickens with Jesse Meeder
• Youth, Social Enterprises and the New Food System with Zoe Hollomon, MAP’s Markets Manager
• Messaging for Local Food with Erin Sharkey, MAP’s Creative Director
• Developing Youth-centered Programming with Erin Sharkey, MAP’s Creative Director and several youth participants from the Growing Green Program.
• With a special presentation from Samina Raja, PhD- Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University at Buffalo entitled – Building Communities as if People Eat
• Introduction to Urban Agriculture will be offered for an additional $25 on Friday March 11 from 1-5pm

Well, cool website with a great newsletter alert! 

Urban Garden Casual is a great resource for fun gardening ideas. Check out their latest email about building a budget-friendly indoor hot house for your little seedlings!! 

DIY Indoor Hot House

Posted: 17 Feb 2011 03:06 AM PST

By Mindy McIntosh-Shetter

A hot house is a great tool that any gardener can benefit from but not everyone has the money or the land required to build one.

A simple hot house can be designed to fit on a windowsill or shelf with no problem.

The concept of a hot house is that it is heated “building” that utilizes solar radiation.

Reflective materials compound this radiation through the use of stone, barrels painted black and filled with water or a combination of many different technologies. Below is a list of supplies that are needed for one hot house but I promise once you make one you will want to make more.

Go here to read this article.

]]> http://www.buffaloreuse.org/blog/2011/02/cool-blog-alert-2/feed/ 0 http://www.buffaloreuse.org/blog/2010/12/staying-green-over-the-holidays/ http://www.buffaloreuse.org/blog/2010/12/staying-green-over-the-holidays/#comments Wed, 22 Dec 2010 14:21:25 +0000 Danielle http://www.buffaloreuse.org/blog/2010/12/staying-green-over-the-holidays/

Check out tips from TechSoup for staying green through Christmas……….they call it PREcycling!!!!!

Precycling

Don't forget, a rain barrel is the greenest gift of them all. Stop by the ReSource, there are still a few left at the 2010 price!! 

HEAP is a federally funded grant program intended to assist low-income households in meeting immediate home energy needs.  HEAP recently changed their guidelines – if you didn’t qualify before, you may qualify now!!

HEAP can help you pay your families energy bills in an emergency situation or over a period of time. Please check out the following eligibility guidelines to see if you qualify for a HEAP Program.

There are THREE types of HEAP benefits:

Regular HEAP – this benefit is an annual supplement to assist eligible households with heating costs or to supplement rent which includes heat.

Emergency HEAP – this benefit is used to meet heat or heat related emergencies. (such as a shut off notice)

Heating Equipment Repair and Replacement – this benefit is available to assist homeowners in replacing or repairing unsafe or inoperable primary heating equipment.

Beginning November 1 each year, clients can apply for regular and emergency benefits. When funding runs out, the application period closes.

Eligibility Rules for Regular HEAP

HEAP eligibility is based on the following:

• The household’s gross income for the month of application – the amount you are paid BEFORE TAXES are taken out.
• The applicant must be a NYS resident and the address provided on the application must be the applicant’s current and primary residence.
• Benefits are only provided to US citizens or those household members who meet the qualified alien rules.
• The applicant must pay a vendor directly for heat or pay rent which includes heating costs. You must be able to provide documentation!!

2010-11 Income Eligibility Guidelines

Emergency HEAP

In addition to regular benefit eligibility criteria, applicants for Emergency Benefits must also have the bill in their name or the vendor must be willing to put the bill in the applicant’s name. Emergency applicants should have a shut off notice.

Heating Equipment Repair and Replacement

HEAP benefits are also available to repair or replace the primary heating system for households when the system is unsafe or inoperable. The applicant must be the homeowner. The dwelling must be the applicant’s primary residence and the applicant must currently be residing in the dwelling.

Applying for Regular Benefits

Households must file an application each HEAP program year.  All applicants can apply by mail unless they are self-employed or have rental income. You can also fill out the HEAP application in person at the NYS HEAP Bureau.

Contact Information:

NYS HEAP BUREAU

NYS Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance

40 North Pearl St., 11^th floor

Albany, NY  12243

Phone: 518-473-0332

NYS HEAP Website: www.otda.state.ny.us/main/programs/heap

NYS HEAP Email: nysheap {at} otda.state.ny(.)us Additional information and an eligibility prescreening tool can be found at: www.mybenefits.ny.gov

Answer: BUFFALO ReUSE RAIN BARRELS!!!

Give someone a 55 gallon gift this year!  Buy a ready-to-go, pre-assembled Buffalo ReUse Rain Barrel

ONLY $20 on Black Friday.

Maybe you already have a rain barrel at home, or maybe you need one too.  You might know someone with a thirsty garden, or someone who uses rain water as a way to reduce their water and sewer bills.  Rain barrels are a way to conserve water and improve our local environment; they divert water away from building foundations, slow water run-off, reduce the amount of water entering storm drain systems, and reduce the amount of pollution that is carried into our waterways. What a great gift!!!

A Buffalo ReUse Rain Barrel includes:  a 55 gallon food grade barrel, a hose bibb (spigot), a screened drain cover, all fully assembled, and instructions for installing the rain barrel under your downspout.  Once installed, the barrel will hold 55 gallons of high quality rain water, and you can attach a hose and use it for whatever you want.

Save more than 30% on Rain Barrels, only on Black Friday.  No other discounts or offers are good with this deal.  Get ‘em while they last!

Here is the new compost bin we setup at our garden to help us reuse our garden waste and the leaves we have been raking up.  The container that you use for a compost setup can be just about anything, or nothing — 5 gallon buckets, straw bales, an old garbage bin with holes drilled in the sides (for air circulation), a circular frame of “chicken wire” (welded wire), or a simple, large, static pile right on the ground.  In the picture, we used a forklift pallet and some reclaimed 2×4′s and slats to build a frame, and closed up the front with a bit of welded wire mesh.  Every container may have a slightly different process to how you compost in it, but you’ll figure it out as you go.  Compost is a great learning experience because of just that — there isn’t an absolutely “right” way to do it, but you learn ways to do it better as you go.

When choosing or building a container, important things to keep in mind are the amount of space you have to work in, the amount of materials you have to work with, air circulation, and where the container will go.  If you have, for example, a small upper apartment, you might be better off going with an indoor worm bin or a Bokashi composter. Also, the 3-bucket compost system utilizes three small containers (like 5 gallon buckets) to quickly decompose small amounts of waste at a time in a small space — and it’s especially helpful in winter.

Compost is the product of nature’s decomposition process.  You can make it scientific or simple.  Bacteria, mold, and fungi break down waste with a little help from their friends — the worms.  As they break down the materials, it consumes oxygen, carbon and nitrogen, creating heat and releasing water.  Having a good balance of oxygen, moisture, carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich materials creates an ideal atmosphere for the beneficial bacteria and other decomposers hard at work making your compost.  Learning how to get that balance is part of the experience.  It’s not completely necessary (anything will break down over time), but it helps reduce odors, speeds up the process and makes a better product.

When you begin your pile, and while you build it, try to balance the kinds of ingredients you put into it by adding a layer of one when you add the other.  If you put a layer of kitchen scraps in your bin (primarily “greens”), put a layer of leaves or shredded paper or wood chips (“browns”) to even it out.  You can get very technical, but you don’t have to — it’s your compost pile.  Compost 101 has a good article to reference for carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich materials.  They have a very rigid, technical approach to balancing the carbon to nitrogen ratio (25:1 C:N) — which is a bit over-complicated for the beginner — but is helpful to think about.  They also have some great tips to consider as well.

There are two types of ingredients for your compost: browns and greens (or carbon-rich and nitrogen-rich).  Browns include: paper, ashes, cardboard, cornstalks, leaves, and wood chips.  Greens include: grass clippings, garden waste, coffee grounds, vegetable scraps, and weeds.  See the link above or google for a more complete list. AVOID Adding: meat scraps or bones, sawdust from treated woods, grease or fatty foods, domesticated animal feces, clippings from chemically treated lawns, etc.  Think about what you add to your pile before you add it.

Aeration and moisture are the only other elements that you may have to provide, depending on how you establish your compost system and how you maintain it.  If you purchase a bin composter, or build one from a old garbage can, you may need to turn it every now and then to give it some air.  If you build a large static pile, you may only turn it over once or twice.  If you add too much nitrogen-rich materials, you might end up with a wet, stinky mess — and too much carbon leaves your pile dry and cold.  My suggestion is to keep it simple: start small and add a little bit of brown every time you add a little green, and experiment with different kinds of compost techniques to learn how the materials work.  As your experience grows, so will your pile (and vise versa).

Friday, October 8th at 1PM — Join us at our office @ 158 Eaton (just behind the ReSource) for what may be the last Rain Barrel Building Workshop of the year.  Although the warm weather is leaving us, there is still plenty of rain to come before it turns to snow… Use that rain for watering your houseplants or washing your car before Winter, just make sure to empty it and store it indoors or upside down before the temperature falls below freezing!!!

This workshop is free, and includes detailed overview of the tools and materials necessary to build a rain barrel, and you’ll also learn how to install your rain barrel to your downspout. If you want to build your own and take it home with you, it’s only $30!!!

Also, we will have plenty of rain barrels in stock for the Holiday season –  they make great “stocking-stuffers” for the gardener or Eco-conscious friend or family member in your life…

CITY OF BUFFALO
LANDLORD TRAINING
Friday, November 5
8:30am – 4:30pm
At Belmont Shelter Corporation
1195 Main Street
At the corner of Dodge

If you are a landlord or considering property management, don’t miss the opportunity to learn valuable information such as

• eviction proceedings
• mold prevention
• lead poisoning prevention
• funding sources
• housing court procedure
• the role of the police
• inspection procedures
• detecting drug activity on your property
• crime prevention techniques
• fair housing
• rental assistance corporation, belmont resources
• social service information
• leases and the best tenant selection processes

To register, please visit the City of Buffalo’s website.

Join us at 298 Northampton St.

There’s a need from Grace Community Church (175 Potomac Ave) for rides and/or carpooling to this event–not sure how many people. If anyone can assist, please coordinate with Matt Kauffman of the Homebuyers Club–maybe meet there at 1:30pm and then head over to ReUse before 2pm.

Join us on our porch @ 158 Eaton on Wednesday, September 1st from 3pm – 6pm, where we will be demonstrating two different recipes for canning tomatoes.  Our workshop will overview blanching, a common preserving and cooking technique, as well as sterilizing, packing, and sealing your jars.  A $5 donation is appreciated to help cover the costs for the workshop, and attendees go home with their own jar of ReUse Tomatoes!