Tag Archives: food

Community Gardens are Sprouting!

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Do you dream of growing your own vegetables? Salt Lake City has some exciting news for you!

Eight City-owned or managed parcels of land have been identified for the development of community gardens.

Interested? Then head over to SLCgreen.com to review the eight available parcels, located in key areas throughout Salt Lake City. There you will also find the Green City Growers Application Packet, with information on the six step application process.

Applications are due by December 15, 2013. So get moving!

[10-18-2013] A special thank you to the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News for covering our October 17 event at Cannon Greens Community Garden!

It’s Time to Celebrate Local Food!

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It’s time to celebrate local food!

Food Day is a nationwide celebration of healthy, affordable, and sustainably produced food and a grassroots campaign for better food policies.

Salt Lake City is marking Food Day 2013 with a series of exciting local events.

Continue reading →

Are you up for a challenge?

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October 5-12, 2013 is Eat Local Week in Salt Lake City, and there are many events taking place to celebrate our community of local-foodists.

Eat Local Week aims to increase awareness of our foodshed, provide information and resources for eating locally, and build a community hungry for local food–making Utah a more nourishing place.

Eat Local Week also introduces the Eat Local Challenge! The Challenge is simple, eat as local as you can. The standard challenge is only eating food that comes from within a 250 mile radius. Not ready for that? Come up with a challenge that works for you! Choose a couple of food groups to get locally and stay true to them. Be creative, challenge yourself, and have fun!

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Green Guide to the Utah Arts Festival

It’s that time of year again! The 2013 Utah Arts Festival kicks off today, Thursday, June 20th and runs through Sunday, June 24th.

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We love this annual gathering in the heart of Salt Lake City that celebrates art in its many forms – from paintings to pottery, music to performance art, delicious food and drink and much much more!

The Utah Arts Festival places a priority on reducing its impact on the environment, with their eARTh Team spearheading this effort.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Last year the Festival recycled more than 18 tons of plastic and cardboard and 2 tons of glass! When you visit the Festival this weekend, be sure to look for the Waste Wise Stations located throughout the venue and dispose of your waste accordingly.

Getting There

We recommend leaving your car at home, or at the very least carpooling, to this wonderful event. Skip the traffic altogether with our favorite air-friendly options:

Public Transit: Use the Library Station on the TRAX Red Line or the Courthouse Station on the Blue and Green TRAX lines. The 2, 205 and 228 also access Library Square.

Bike: Ride your bike to the Festival and enjoy free bike valet parking and $2 off admission! The bike valet is located on 400 South next to the City-County Building, mid-block between State Street and 200 East. During the 2012 Festival, over 1,566 bikes were parked at the valet lot. That’s a lot of cars that stayed home!

Powering the Festival

This year Rocky Mountain Power and its Blue Sky customers will help “green” the Utah Arts Festival even more by supporting renewable energy equal to the energy used to power the event. Support from Blue Sky customers is making it possible for the Festival to avoid 87,398 pounds of CO2 emissions. That’s like planting 1,027 trees or taking seven cars off the road for a whole year.

Other Green Tidbits

  • The Festival sends vegetable oil used at their food booths to a local business that converts it into bio-diesel.
  • Compostable food waste is also captured from food booths, diverting 700 pounds from the landfill last year alone.
  • Electric plug ins on Washington Square make gas generators a thing of the past.

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Stop by to say “hello!”

SLCgreen will be at the Arts Festival, so keep an eye out for our booth and be sure to stop by. We will have a wide variety of helpful information about all things green in SLC!

Urban Garden & Farm Week

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After seven successful years of chicken empowerment, Wasatch Community Gardens’ annual Chicken Week is growing up!

Say hello to the very first Urban Garden and Farm Week, which runs June 16th through June 22nd.

Whether you are a budding gardener, a seasoned grower, a backyard poultry keeper, or an urban dweller with herbs in a window, the Urban Garden and Farm Week has an event for you.

Urban Garden and Farm Week, which uses the motto “make, raise, grow,” will highlight unique, innovative and traditional growing techniques and lifestyles. You will have the opportunity to see and discuss urban homesteads, rainwater catchment, intensive gardening techniques, backyard livestock, bee keeping, season extending, unique garden spaces, permaculture and more.

A few of the events you can look forward to (we certainly are!)

Stop by the Wasatch Community Gardens website and Facebook page to learn more. And check out this recent story from Salt Lake Tribune.

What’s Your Gardening Potential?

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Have you ever wondered how much food you could grow in your yard if you took the time to garden? Now you can find out your gardening potential with this nifty tool!

Through the Community Food Production Mapping Tool, you have the ability to find out an estimation of your property’s food production potential. We website also links users to resources that will educate and empower them to grow more food. Simply zoom in and click on your address to see the following informtion:

  • Address
  • Lot Area
  • Arable Area
  • Calories (calories per year)
  • Food Days (days per year)

It’s fascinating! And it’s time for you to give it a try. Instructions for using the Community Food Production Mapping Tool are available at SLCgreen.com. 

 

Grow Your Own Indoor Herbs

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Salt Lake City Green joined forces with KUTV2 this morning to show viewers how easy it is to grow your own indoor herb garden! View the segment.

Tools

  • Planter – choose one with excellent drainage.
  • A few of your favorite herbs – we love basil, oregano, rosemary, parsley and thyme.
  • Watering can
  • Potting soil – use a few rocks at the bottom of your planter to improve drainage.

Getting Started

If you are a novice gardener or don’t have much of a green thumb, growing an indoor culinary herb garden is an easy place to start. Most herbs are sun worshipers, so all you need to get started is a nice, sunny place in your home.

Plant

  • Start with a container large enough to accommodate growth.
  • Fill the pot with soil three quarters of the way full.
  • Moisten the soil
  • Remove herbs, loosen soil.
  • Place herbs in pot and fill with enough soil to cover the root ball.
  • Pat the soil down lightly and water well.

Care

  • Light is the most important element in growing indoor herbs. Find a spot that gets at least 6-8 hours of light a day.
    • Herbs growing long stems and few leaves are probably not getting enough light and are stretching to find it.
  • Water each herb according to its individual needs. To avoid over watering, only water your herbs when you see them start to wilt. This should be about once a week.
  • Regular clipping will promote further growth, so use your herbs frequently. But don’t cut more than a third off at one time.
  • If your herbs start flowering, they are not being clipped enough!

Enjoy!

Growing your own indoor herbs is an easy way to jazz up your cooking and experiment with new flavors — all while saving money. Just remember that fresh herbs have a 3:1 ratio, which means that you should use three times the amount of fresh herbs compared to their dry counterparts.

Bridget Stuchly with SLCGreen shows KUTV2's Mary Nickles how to plant an indoor herb garden.

Bridget Stuchly with SLCGreen shows KUTV2’s Mary Nickles how to plant an indoor herb garden.

Spring is Here! Think Green.


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Spring is here! Now is a great time to think green. Your backyard is a great place to grow a variety of fresh and delicious fruits and veggies this spring, summer and fall. Check out the resources below to make the most of the 2013 growing season.

What is your potential?

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Have you ever wondered how much food you could grow in your yard if you took the time to garden? Through the Community Food Production Mapping Tool, you have the ability to not only click on your property to find out  an estimation of its food production potential, but you will also be linked to resources that will educate and empower you to grow more food.

Salt Lake City can also provide an annual calendar of solar radiation for your property. Sample solar book (PDF). Residents are encouraged to use the grid lines to plan their garden beds for optimal sun exposure. Simply email slcgreen@slcgov.com to request your book.

Understand your soil

The heart of your garden is the soil. Whether you garden succeeds or fails, is directly related to your soil, the micro-organisms that live in it, and the organic matter they feed off of. Join Wasatch Community Gardens for their ‘Know your soil’ workshop in April, or get some tips from Organic Gardening.

Grow your own seedlings

Many gardeners have never tried to grow their own starts from seed. Here are some tips  from Organic Gardening to simplify the process.

Fruit trees

Our friends at the USU Extension in Salt Lake County have two upcoming classes that will help you learn how to make the most out of your fruit trees:

Do you have excess fruit every year that inevitably ends up in the compost? Sign up for the Salt Lake City Fruit Share Program and volunteers will help you harvest your fruit. You will keep 1/3 of the harvest, the volunteers will take 1/3 and the final third will be donated.

Gardening Workshops

Whether you are a beginning gardener just getting started, a seasoned grower looking to learn some new organic techniques, or practically a professional looking for something new to grow, Wasatch Community Gardens has a class for you.

Some upcoming April classes include:

Learn more

Salt Lake City Green has a wide variety of resources on sustainable food in Salt Lake City available at www.SLCGreen.com.

Community Food Assessment

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How does the availability of wholesome and affordable food impact the health of our community? This is the question that Salt Lake City Green and the Mayor’s Food Policy Task Force took on when they began the Community Food Assessment.

The food assessment provides a basis for developing strategies to support local food enterprises, foster rural/urban food links (farm to plate) and expanding access to healthy and nutritious food.

“Gaining a firm understanding of Salt Lake City’s current food system is necessary to assist Salt Lake City and it’s Food Policy Task Force in creating strategic planning, policy and action steps to strengthen local urban agriculture,” states an excerpt from the report.

Food Snapshot Highlights:

  • From 1997 to 2007, Utah Certified Organic operations increased from 3 to 48.
  • Salt Lake City is home to more than 22 community, school and neighborhood gardens, providing fresh, healthy food for hundreds of residents.
  • Salt Lake City is home to eight farmers markets, providing a direct link between residents and the people growing their food, and providing more convenient, fresh, local food while growing our local food economy.
  • Approximately 20% of Salt Lake City’s residential waste is food scraps.

Stayed tuned for more in depth coverage of key findings from the report, including next steps.

In the meantime, read the draft report.

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