The word of the summer is “staycation”, baby. Which means sticking close to home since gas is through the roof. But it doesn’t mean you can’t do some exploring in your own neighborhood. A couple of summers ago, I checked out a park I’d never been to that’s less than 5 miles from my house, and I’ve lived here for 45 years! Plenty of surprises lurk closer than you think – like local softball leagues, or farms, even. And speaking of farms, guess what? Everyone has to eat. So have some fun with it.

Epicurious has a cool little flash tool that lets you find which vegetables and fruits are ready to chow down on depending on what month it is and where you live. Here’s what’s ready for the kitchen in NC right now:

[where: 27619]

Green and Save: ROI tables for greening your home.

We may not be an [primarily] agrarian society anymore, but one thing that’ll never change is that we still have to eat. Which means food must still be produced, whether on a farm half the globe away, or outside on the balcony. Obviously the latter being the greener option in terms of getting it from the ground to the plate.

It started with a project at Ottowa’s McGill University, called the Edible Campus. Transforming existing urban spaces to productive ones reconnects us to nature, reduces the urban heat island, and provides for us on a local basis. As they always say, “Land – they’re not making any more of that, you know.”

Vancouver is taking the Edible Campus idea to a city scale with their planned project, Southeast False Creek.

We have a small herb garden behind our building. It’s great to go pluck some fresh basil or dill to go with dinner every day. And we don’t have to find a parking place to do it.

Further reading:

• http://www.myurbanfarm.com/ – exploring the fast changing world of urban gardens
• http://verticalfarm.com/ – if you can’t go out, go up!
• http://www.fifthseasongardening.com/ – container gardening for the city dweller

Square foot gardening blog

A company called Bolon in Sweden invented woven vinyl flooring in 1949. It’s green: reusing materials, and has some interesting attributes:

• fire resistant
• slip resistant
• sound absorbing
• tolerant of commercial use
• will not fray
• 5 year warranty

As for maintenance/cleaning, it’s no more trouble than carpet, really. The weave is very tight, so it actually holds less dirt and moisture than carpet, and it can be used with an underfloor heating system. It can be vacuumed and steam cleaned similarly.

This cement based solid surface from Material Raum Form is a nice option to typically angular aggregate terazzo or glass aggregate concrete.

It reminds me of that weird drink in the 90′s that had those suspended bally things, but it looks far more cool, and is fortunately inedible. Like Orbitz should have been. via

From the site:

“Pearlnera® can be used for worktops (for example, countertops for kitchens), and it can also be laid like floor tiles. It’s emission-free, and does not pollute the environment in any way. Both the optical appearance of the material itself and the range of possible colourings open entirely new ways of creating attractive designs for various living spaces. Pearlnera® has been thoroughly tested for its quality and properties.”

Solar hot water heaters now mandatory in Hawaii.