Ryanishungry Videos

I know, I know- flying places is not very green at all, I hear ya- but getting to and from the airport can be. Recently, on a trip to Los Angeles, I decided to bypass the forever clogged LA highway system and go the Green LA Girl route and take the Metro. Yes, LA has a subway and it rocks. For $2.50 roundtrip, I got downtown from LAX (and back again a few days later) in one hour. I made it to my events and then I made it home to San Fran without ever having to climb into a car and sit in traffic. It was great! I highly recommend public transport to and from airports. Especially New York City where a cab can cost you over $100 roundtrip (take a book if you re going to JFK, it s a long ride!).

You might remember from our Stone Soup video that our little eco-village has started to cull our chicken flock to make room for new birds. For the last 2 months we ve been learning what it takes to be mother hens and raise two dozen newly hatched chics. Jay and I grew up in urban areas where there were no chickens but in the grocery store, so this was a learning experience for us both. These babies need tons of food, water and warmth because they grow exponentially in their first months of life. The benefits of having chickens in your backyard are many- they eat veggie food scraps and weeds, they poop instant fertilizer, they lay eggs and, if you re into it, they ll eventually make a great organic, free range, home raised meal.

As you might remember, we made a new worm bin after our original bin failed. This new one is doing great! The drainage holes in the bottom have helped keep it moist but not too wet, the shallow shape allows the worms to get to everything faster and the blending of food scraps allows the worms to eat right away. Today we harvest all the rich vermicompost (soil) and sprinkle it into one of our garden beds. Potted plants also LOVE this stuff. I ve brought back to life more than one of our failing ferns with a scoop of nutrient rich vermicompost. Why buy chemically fertilizer when you can use worm poop?

We ve been composting in our homemade worm bin for 5 months now. Through trials and tribulations, we ve learned a lot about the right environment for worms! In fact we experimented so much, that we managed to decimate our entire worm population. *Sigh*. Master composter and Freshtopia diva, Barb Finnin, came by to see how our worm bin was doing after all this time. Thank goodness she was so encouraging! She helped us haul our semi-composted compost (and dead worm population) to our new backyard composting bins where it can still be useful. We also get a look at a Wriggly Wranch-a multi-layered worm bin that our neighbors purchased at a discount from our county waste management. Seems that if you can get the discount, the layered method is the way to go. We will try again using homemade methods, but this time we ll have a little bit more knowledge to keep our worms alive. Thanks Barb!

Nikki Martinez and Oren Jaffe started EcoTuesday as a chill networking event for Green business folk to interact with each other. Structure is the key to success at EcoTuesday. The event opens with speakers from various green backgrounds- a good topic to spark conversations later. Next, everyone has a chance to introduce themselves and what they re passionate about- second great topic to chat about. Finally, it s walk around and mingle time- introduce yourself to the CEO of that small solar business, get an interview with some potential employees or start a business revolution with other fellow green upstarts. EcoTuesday strives to be a place for green and sustainable partnerships to form helping to strengthen the larger green movement with the proper economic strength and business savvy.

Can you tell that we re into our worm bin? As you saw in our last worm bin update, our bin had been getting a little sludgy and unproductive. Jay went online and found a source to buy red wigglers for cheap so we could bump up the composting production of our bin. Keeping an eye (and nose) on your bin will help you get a feel for how things are going in your worms world.

We ve been Vermicomposting for almost 4 months now and it s been quite a learning experience! We recently moved to a place where we could place our bin outside, so we got a little lazy about smell. Pretty soon, the smell was really bad! Too much liquid, not enough drainage and air was causing anaerobic (sans oxygen) bacteria to grow which causes that rotting smell. Jay has been patient enough to help the bin drain by rotating in paper, dirt and sawdust. Drilling several dozen extra drain holes helped a bunch too! We ve also been checking out the book Worms Eat My Garbage for more Vermicomposting tips!

Keith aka Skeeter is living totally off the grid. Starting with a raw plot of land, he built his house from scratch, dug a well, created a solar power system and is completely responsible for all his waste. Keith is a good example of someone who got tired of paying utilities and mortgages to live on earth. He took matters into his own hands and decided to be as independent as possible. Deciding to live out in the wilderness is one way to go off the grid. We ll be exploring other ways of being independent in urban environments in some of our next posts. Thanks Keith!

Lindsay Hassett aka Betty Biodiesel leads a group of Laguna High School students in the Green Ambassadors program on a tour of Dave Erikson s home brew biodiesel lab. The Green Ambassadors program was created to get students learning science, civics and environmental stewardship through experience and action. Today s lesson provided the group with basic information about biodiesel that they could present to their school board. This field trip is just one step in the process to further their mission of converting dirty diesel school buses into cleaner burning bio-machines.

In the heart of Park Slope Brooklyn, Rolling Press is, unlike traditional offset printing presses, the perfect neighbor. No loud noises, no harsh fumes- Rolling Press is a dual purpose live/work studio and home to president, Eugene Lee. Eugene gives us a tour and drops some science on how printing can be as green as possible- not only by using green materials, but by cutting out unnecessary, outdated chemical processes. Check out RollingPress.com.

UPDATE: We have modified this original design to a shallower, more airy worm bin. Check out our new design here, http://ryanishungry.com/2007/09/14/vermicomposting-born-again-worm-bin/ Cheers! Good Luck! Barb Finnin is part of the amazing Freshtopia team. She s a certified master composter- her specialty is Vermicomposting with worms. We were super excited to learn that we could compost in our city apartment with a homemade worm bin even though we don t have a yard. Throwing food scraps away in the garbage is not something either of us enjoys, so having a green alternative has been more than satisfying for our sustainability goals. After 4 weeks, our worms are happy and thriving. Find out more about Vermicomposting and other forms of composting on Wikipedia. Visit Barb at Freshtopia.net. Runtime- 9:47

Ever since I was little, my family has been composting. I remember bugging my mom to get a compost bin when I was 10 so we didn t have to throw food in the trash, though I m sure she d remember it the other way around! Composting has been around since the dawn of time- it s simple, put the food back where it came from- the dirt! Throwing food in the trash creates unnecessary garbage, so why do it? Why not let nature take it s course and break it all down into nutrient rich soil? Mmmm nutrients!