Indiana Living Green - March 2012

ILG /// MARCH 2012 /// INDIANALIVINGGREEN.COM 1 ILG /// MARCH 2012 /// INDIANALIVINGGREEN.COMM 1

ILG /// MARCH 2012 /// INDIANALIVINGGREEN.COM 3

C O N T E N T S MARCH 2012

PUBLISHER Kevin McKinney [email protected]

EDITORIALEDITOR Jim Poyser [email protected]

EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS Alexis Boxer (West Lafayette)Jaclyn Goldsborough (Fort Wayne)Christina Kratzner (Bloomington)Liz Nolan (Columbus)Jennifer Troemner (Indianapolis)

CONTRIBUTORSMegan Anderson, The ApocaDocs, Angela Herrmann, Lynn Jenkins, Shelby Kelley, Jesse Kharbanda, Rita Kohn, Joe Lee, Mark Lee, Betsy Sheldon, Maria Smietana, Renee Sweany

WEBDIGITAL PLATFORMS EDITOR Tristan [email protected]

I.T. MANAGER T.J. [email protected]

SALES & MARKETINGSALES ASSOCIATE Robert [email protected]

DIRECTOR OF SALES & MARKETING Mary [email protected]

PROMOTIONS COORDINATOR Lauren [email protected]

DISTRIBUTION DISTRIBUTION MANAGER Christa [email protected]

COURIER Dick Powell

ADMINISTRATION BUSINESS MANAGER Kathy [email protected]

CONTRACTS Susie [email protected]

PRODUCTION & DESIGN PRODUCTION MANAGER Melissa [email protected]

SENIOR DESIGNER Asha Patel

DESIGNERS Jarryd Foreman, Anitra Helton

Phone: 317-254-2409To subscribe: IndianaLivingGreen.com/subscribe

IndianaLivingGreen.comWant to be on the ILG team?Email Jim at [email protected]!

10 Worms ruleAnd with the help of a nationally known champion of urban farming, a local philan-thropic fund, the town of Southport, Indiana and legions of volunteers, Linda Proffitt is celebrating the opening of Peaceful Grounds Café and Farm Market: A Center for Agri-culture and Sustainable Living. + by betsy sheldon

D E P A R T M E N T S

5 Doom & Bloom

6 Watts and Whatnot

15 Hoosier Environment

20 Ask Renee

21 T he PANIQuiz

22 The Last Row

23 Life is an Egg by Joe Lee

Indiana Living Green is printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper. Published by NUVO, Inc. ©2012

9 It’s a nice day for a green wedding

You’re getting hitched! You’ve already picked out the perfect ring following the 4 C’s to a T – reCycled or re-Claimed, ethiCal, and Conflict-free – so now it’s time to start planning the 4 green F’s of your wedding. Food, Flowers, Favors and Fotography.+ by renee sweany

18 Brewing green along I-65Throughout 2012, Indiana Living Green will report on the diverse methods of ‘brewing green,’ region by region. These practices include using locally sourced ingredients, packaging materials and brand mer-chandise, while giving spent grains, the cracked barley or wheat kernels left after being infused with hot water, to local farmers for re-use. + by rita kohn

22 Just a Zone 5 farmer in a Zone 6 world

No, it’s not the chorus to a country music song, but after the Jan. 25 release of the long-awaited update to the U.S. Department of Agricul-ture Plant Hardiness Zone Map, it probably could be. This was the first update to the map in 22 years, the last release having occurred in 1990. + by maria smietana

D E A R R E A D E R :Welcome to the newly designed, now-monthly

Indiana Living Green.For those of you who are seeing this magazine

for the first time, we owe a lot to Lynn Jenkins (see pg. 21) for running this magazine for over four years before selling it to NUVO last fall.

We put out two bi-monthly issues, and with this, our March issue, we begin to publish each and every month.

Simultaneously, we are launching a nifty new web site, too, indianalivinggreen.com, with daily features, blogs and stories.

We welcome your ideas, your input, your diatribes. We’ll strive to include as many voices as

possible. Write to us here ([email protected]). Comment on our stories. Send us story ideas ([email protected]). Tell us the amazing things you’re doing to raise eco-consciousness, statewide.

Subscribe: That’ll show us just how committed you are to our success. In fact, if you subscribe now you’ll find a special deal: $14.95 for a year’s subscription, a steal from the normal rate of $24.

There’s a lot of work to do to elevate the eco-consciousness our state, but it doesn’t have to feel like work. In fact, it can be a lot of fun. Join us. The more, the merrier. The merrier it is, the more fun we’ll have.

The ILG Team

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This is my fourth winter com-muting by bicycle, and the warmer-than-usual season has been a relief in some ways. Unlike last year, there’s been a minimum of icy days, where it was downright perilous to be cycling.

The warm winter has been disturb-ing, too. Though I understand the

higher temps this winter are influenced by a weaker La Niña effect, I also know that this is the 35th year in a row that temperatures are higher than average, globally.

Thirty-five years. Globally. That’s… um, what you might call a trend.

But this month’s column is not about the doom of climate change; it’s about the bloom of riding a bicycle.

There’s plenty I could tell you about my life as a bicycle commuter.

I could tell you that Indianapolis is not so flat as you might think, though of course it’s nothing com-pared to, say, the outskirts of Bloomington.

I could tell you I’ve almost been hit twice in the past couple months, because, in each instance, the driver didn’t notice me.

I could tell you I’m sick of sitting behind cars at a stoplight, breathing in exhaust.

I could tell you about how, every day, I wait at a major intersection — Meridian Street — and count the number of cars heading downtown, going to work. The other day I counted 14 cars with a single occupant, before a car with a passenger went by. On average, 90% of cars have one occupant.

I could complain about a lot of things, about how simply we could solve our commuter congestion and pollution problems, but this month’s column is not about the doom of mindlessly singular transporta-tion, but about the bloom of finding the sweet spots while riding a bicycle.

Oh, I’ve discovered many. Indianapolis has plenty of subtle grades, upward and downward, and there are a few stretches of downwardness that I can sit back… and coast… for blocks at a time. Especially after laboring up an ascent, the descent can be such sweet reward.

But last month, during the craziness leading up to the Super Bowl, I found the Mother of All Sweet Spots. That night, I’d visited the Super Bowl Village downtown with my bicycling pals, and found myself alone, finally, at 2

a.m., close to home, pedaling along in 30-degree temps.At an apex along 49th Street, at the corner of

Capitol, heading west, I stopped pedaling and let gravity lead me along the downward slope.

This slope took me through a(n ignored) stop sign then to Boulevard Place, Hinkle Fieldhouse winking at me as I turned right and accelerated down the even steeper grade.

I braked slightly, no cars in sight, as I took a wide left-turn arc onto 52nd Street, the road that leads me home.

Still, no pedaling necessary. I slowed, but resisted the impulse to pedal until

I came to a natural stop two blocks down at a street named Hinesley.

Later, I checked the distance via the odometer in a friend’s car. It’s a half mile.

Over the past four years, this has become quite the quest for me, to find these nuances in topogra-phy in my city via my bicycle.

If you’d told me 25 years ago that a main ambi-tion in my life in my early 50s would be to find subtle gradients in the streets of my city, so that I might mellifluously coast on my bicycle for streets at a time, sometimes as far as a glorious half mile, I might have felt sorry for this future man.

Surely, I’d be the toast of some town, a celebrated writer or something, scads of capital in the bank, making money off itself.

Well. That didn’t happen.Instead I feel fortunate that I’ve found the

delights of a bicycle; that it forces me into interac-tion with nature; that my life connects so directly, so intimately, so ground-level, with my neighborhood, my streets, their topography, the earth.

cycling spots

Don’t forget about our ApocaPoetry Contest

In honor of the Year of the Apocalypse, Indiana Living Green, along with the Writers’ Center of Indiana (www.indianawriters.org), is announcing a poetry contest. Not just any poetry contest, but a contest with a theme: the Apocalypse, ya know, 12/21/12. Here’s the deal. You must write your poem in the style of James Whitcomb Riley. That’s right, the Hoosier Poet himself. Write in the dialect, keep to the form and rhyme about the Apocalypse, with an Indiana angle.

Send your submissions (limit two) to [email protected].

The winner gets $250. We will print any we think are decent or hilarious. Deadline: Oct. 1, 2012; we’ll announce — and print — the winner (and many of the non-winners) in December, of course, just in time for The Endtimes.

My big fat sweetdoom & bloom with Jim Poyser

This month’s column is not about the doom of climate change; it’s about the bloom of riding a bicycle.

6 INDIANALIVINGGREEN.COM /// MARCH 2012 /// ILG

It’s 11 a.m. on a blustery January Friday. Cha-pel has just ended and Valparaiso University (VU) students are filing past a red Prius parked on the sidewalk outside the Harre Union Build-ing. Once inside, the warm aroma of chocolate chip and sugar cookies lures students to a table where a computer monitor loops a two-minute, 13-second video documenting the plight of Jacob Bieber, a VU student without a car. Cold-play’s song, “Paradise,” serves as the soundtrack.

Two 20-something Zipcar staff — aka the Chicago Street Team — greet students as they shuffle by.

“Have you heard about Zipcar?” One guy nods yes, another asks how much it costs, while another quietly surveys the cookie op-tions, then selects the one with Zipcar-green icing adorned with a white Z.

VU officially launched its Zipcar for Univer-sities car-sharing program in January, the fifth Indiana campus to do so since 2010. Zipcar, the largest car-sharing program in the United States, is now present on 250 college and uni-versity campuses, said company officials.

What is car sharing?Car sharing is a service in which members

have access to vehicles by the hour or by the day. Insurance and fuel are generally included

in an hourly rate. According to a report released by David Zhao, Research Analyst, Frost & Sul-livan Automotive Practice, car sharing emerged to meet “mobility gaps between public transit, taxi, bike, car rental, and private vehicle travel.”

In densely populated areas, where owning and maintaining a vehicle can be cost prohibi-tive, car sharing has proven to be a popular, eco-friendly alternative to car ownership. Studies suggest that each shared car replaces between five and 15 private cars.

Around Europe and the UK, various car-share models have been around since the 1960s. It wasn’t until the mid 1990s that car sharing emerged in the United States. Zipcar, founded in 2000 in Cambridge, Mass., is the largest car-share program, with some 650,000 “Zipsters” in North America and the UK, and commanding some 80 percent of the U.S. car-sharing market.

Car sharing greens campuses … really?

IU-Bloomington launched Indiana’s first Zipcar partnership two years ago.

IU’s former Transportation Services direc-tor), Kent McDaniel, wasn’t convinced it was a good idea.

“You end up giving people who don’t have a

car on campus an option to drive and then you have more vehicle miles,” worried McDaniel.

Two years later, however, he’s sold on car sharing because Zipcar provides another transportation option — filling the mobility gap and making it easier for him to tell stu-dents they can leave their cars at home.

For VU student William Liu, a Taiwanese masters student studying digital media who produced the video, said Zipcar is convenient for international students. Averaging $8 per hour, Zipcar also is affordable.

“When I heard Valpo was getting Zipcar, I thought, thank God! It’s easy because I can go with four friends to buy groceries, run errands and save money,” said Liu.

With somewhere between 90 and 270 cars replaced by Zipcars, organizers have a Humvee-sized task ahead of them to reduce the estimated 70,000 student cars currently concentrated on the five Zipcar campuses.

WATTS AND WHATNOT

Indiana campusesCar sharing rolls into

How to get Zipcar in your community?According to Colleen McCormick, Zipcar Public Relations Manager, Zipcar staff look for densely populated areas with strong public transporta-tion, and a high cost of car ownership as criteria for placing cars within a particular area.

by angela herrmann

Zipcar in IndianaZipcar now has a total of 18 cars on Indiana campuses:Indiana University 5 ZipcarsUniversity of Notre Dame 4 Zipcars*Butler University 2 ZipcarsPurdue University 5 ZipcarsValparaiso University 2 Zipcars

*All cars are available for the general public to use except those on the Notre Dame campus.


PURDUE FINGERS NEONICOTINOIDS IN BEE DEATHSResearch shows Purdue University scientists and honeybee experts Greg Hunt and Christian Krupke may have found one of the factors responsible for bees’ deaths, primarily around agricultural fields. Such research became relevant when honeybee populations began showing a serious decline. According to Hunt, each year America is losing one-third of its honeybee hives. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates honeybees to be responsible for $15 - $20 billion in the industry annually. According to Krupke, most fruit, nut and vegetable crop plants depend on honeybees for pollination. Purdue’s research shows the presence of neonicotinoid insecticides in all of the dead bees found in and around their hives. These insecticides are protective coatings used for all corn and about half of all soybean seeds before planting. The research findings also show the insecticides were present at high concentrations in waste talc, which is exhausted from farm machinery during planting, thus spreading large amounts into our environment. Hunt says we need to try to understand the risks associated with neonicotinoids. He says other side effects for bees could be loss of homing ability or reduced resistance to disease or mites. Before death, bees are exhibiting tremors or uncoordinated movement caused by the toxins. However, researchers including Hunt cannot say any single factor is to blame for the honeybee deaths. The North American Pollinator Protection Campaign and the USDA’s Agricultural and Food Research Initiative Purdue University funded this research.

ECO-FRIENDLY BASKETBALLEco-friendliness has found a niche in a place as unexpected and competitive as a college basketball court. The Sierra Club (SC) – with the help of Indiana Univer-sity environmentalist organizations and activists – spread the message of clean alternatives to coal amongst IU and Northern Kentucky University basketball fans in what were called Sierra Club Clean Match-Ups in January. Paying more than $17,000 for each game, totaling in $34,750, SC and on-campus student groups passed out t-shirts, rally towels, and bought court-side advertisements for the game. “We thought this would be a good way to reach a larger audience and reach out to the campus community in a different way,” said Alexis Boxer, regional coal organizer for SC. The games were themed “Let’s score one for clean energy” and “Let’s score one for clean air” for IU and UK, respectively. “It has a really great resonance with the students that attended,” said Boxer. “They got some cool stuff out of it and also got to learn about clean energy.”

ECOLAB IS DONE ROOTING FOR POCKET CHANGE Welcome to EcoLab: a 55-acre protected wetland, an in-depth source of learning and exploration for Marian University, and the recipient of a $1 million grant from the Nina Mason Pullman Charitable Trust. This generous donation is not the first from the trust—in the past 13 years, the Pulliam Trust has donated nearly $2 million in a variety of bundles to restore and study the EcoLab, and the trust intends to donate a whopping $5 million altogether. EcoLab will be a source of inspiration and education for students of all ages, including the junior researchers at Marian’s K-12 outreach program, and will continue to inspire for generations to come. Find out more about the trust at http://www.nmpct.org and about EcoLab at www.marian.edu/ecolab.

FINDING FOLIAGE JUST GOT FASTERMaybe you’re looking for local plants in your landscaping. Maybe your cub scout has some wildlife identification to do. Maybe you’re just really interested in the plant species of Indiana. Whatever your reason, Butler University has a new database just for you, filled with more than 10,000 specimens of wild In-diana plants from the collection at the Friesner Herbarium. If you can’t think of the name of your favorite flora, you can also search the time it was collected, or the growing conditions of where the specimen was found—which is even more useful for those who want to look up plants that will survive in your back-yard. And if you don’t see what you’re looking for, just wait: Butler University will add 500 more specimens per month until funding runs out. Find out more at http://palni.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/herbarium4.

illustration by shelby kelly


by renee sweany

You’re getting hitched! You’ve already picked out the perfect ring following the 4 C’s to a T – reCycled or reClaimed, ethiCal, and Conflict-free – so now it’s time to start plan-ning the 4 green F’s of your wedding. Food, Flowers, Favors and Fotography.

FOOD Much of it travels 2,000 or more miles to get to us here in Indiana. Find a local caterer who will integrate locally sourced ingredients into your wedding feast. Speaking of feasts, that’s who catered our wedding — Feast from Bloom-ington (www.feastcateringonline.com). Other green gourmets that I’ve grown to love are Avec Moi (www.happygofoodie.com/) and The Juniper Spoon (www.thejuniperspoon.com/).

If you’re working with a specific caterer be-cause of your venue, be sure to ask if they can source locally. It’s likely that at least some of the ingredients can be found nearby and there are plenty of Indiana farmers who would love to share their bounty on your big day.

Looking for a way to serve your guests with style and sustainability in mind? Violet Vintage is a new company in town that rents vintage tableware, furniture and accessories for events. From wine glasses and dinner plates to bud vases and candlesticks to a birdcage or vintage suitcases, you’ll be able to outfit your wedding without buying new. (violetvintage.com/)

FLOWERS There are thousands of flower varieties native to Indiana and growers com-mitted to preserving their beauty.

Harvest Moon Flower Farm is a small, sus-tainable, year-round flower farm near Spencer, Indiana. (www.harvestmoonflowerfarm.com) They harvest flowers the day before your big day to create fresh and seasonal bouquets, cor-

sages, boutonnieres, and other arrangements. And they’ll even dry and rework your wedding flowers into arrangements and wreaths to enjoy after the honeymoon is over.

J P Parker Flowers is another locally-owned florist with shops in Franklin and Indianapolis. (www.jpparkerco.com/) Their Needham, IN, farm is known for its crop of 20,000 peony stems and 300,000 sunflow-ers annually – not to mention hydrangeas, delphiniums, larkspur, zinnias, coneflowers, mints, herbs and other greenery. J P Parker does not use pesticides and encourages their local bee population. As for the flowers that they don’t grow, they work with a distributor that is conscientious about their sourcing.

FAVORS This is one area that can be the most wasteful – of our resources, money and time. Do your guests a favor by not giving them something that they’ll feel guilty about not wanting to keep! If favors are a must, get creative and think of items that are a useful reflection of your green self.

Since our cats and dogs are such an impor-tant part of our lives (and our dog, Miles, was our ring bearer), we made a donation to the Humane Society of Indianapolis in honor of our guests and gave locally made, organic dog treats from Pet Lover’s Organic Bakery (Westfield, IN) and cat toys and organic nip from Purrfect Play (Chesterton, IN). (www.petloversorganic.com and www.purrfectplay.com) Leftovers definitely didn’t go to waste with our 4-legged family!

Other ideas: seed packets from Nature’s Crossroads Seed Company in Bloomington, organic truffles from Litterally Divine Toffee

& Truffles in Carmel, locally-made lip balm from Herbal Art in Fishers, or even reusable shopping bags in your wedding colors.

FOTOGRAPHY If you’re having a green wed-ding, shouldn’t you capture each moment in a green way? There are a couple of local wed-ding photographers who take their commit-ment to the environment as seriously as your commitment to marriage – they go beyond digital proofs and recycling.

Two Pedals Photography offers a discounted Green Wedding Package for couples who com-mit to using at least two other green vendors or demonstrate how they’re going green on their own. As vegans, they offer animal-free, earth-friendly albums and an additional $200 savings to those committing to an animal-free wedding and reception (though I think dog ring bearers are acceptable). (www.2pedalsphotography.com)

Olry Photography is a husband and wife duo that are certified members of Greener Photography’s Leadership Circle, demon-strating an advanced commitment to greener business practices, greener products, and to leading the way to change in their community and the industry. They power their home office with 100% Green Energy (through IPL) and use rechargeable batteries in their equip-ment. (www.olryphotography.com)

Now, repeat after me:I <state your name>, take you, Earth, to be

my lifetime companion. I promise to love you unconditionally, to honor and respect you, for better or for worse, in good times and in bad, in coldness and in warmth, to love and to cherish, from this day forward, until death do us part.

You may now hug a tree.

It’s a nice day for agreen wedding

^photo courtesy of harvest moon flower farm


The best way toward world peace might be the same route as to a man’s heart — through the stomach. At least that’s the way Linda Proffitt sees it. The impassioned peace activ-ist, whose not-for-profit Global Peace Initia-tive has served Indianapolis for six years, has long believed that peace cannot be attained until the most basic human needs are met. To that end, her organization has developed and nurtured gardens in schools, faith communi-ties and neighborhoods throughout the city — with the purpose of feeding the hungry.

Now she’s ready to crank it up a few notches. And with the help of a nationally known cham-pion of urban farming, a local philanthropic fund, the town of Southport, Indiana and le-gions of volunteers, she is celebrating the open-ing of Peaceful Grounds Café and Farm Market: A Center for Agriculture and Sustainable Living.

The multimillion dollar community devel-opment includes plans for a café, commercial kitchen, farm market, training center and — Proffitt points out — the first home of Global Peace Initiative.

Bold and bigProffitt’s vision for Peaceful Grounds is

bold and big. But a late-summer 2011 visit to the abandoned concrete facility in Southport would have revealed a less-than-promising future. Decrepit buildings sheltered families of raccoons. Broken glass and other detritus littered the concrete and a thin, grey surface that, after years of abuse and neglect, could hardly be described as soil.

But Proffitt pictured something different: “I see a place that will employ a lot of people: 20 to 30 working on the demo farms, 16 to 20 people in the restaurant.”

She summons up sharply focused images: a group in the teaching kitchen learning to can tomatoes; a wall of vertical lettuces tended to by high schoolers; workshop students learning a new vocabulary — vermiculture, aquaponics, mycoscaping — with hands-on practice caring for, respectively, worms, feeding fish and grow-ing mushrooms; local restaurateurs shopping for from-the-field produce for their evening menu; a potter’s wheel demo in full spin; a parking lot packed with school buses and cars.

Proffitt acknowledges that her picture of a multipurpose center of sustainability will take three to five years to complete. “This redevel-opment project is ongoing; it’s a work in prog-ress and incubator for other business ventures. The end product may look quite different from the landscape we see now. I want to be receptive to what comes along — and welcome partnership and collaboration with others.”

It’s an approach that has served her well as founder and director of GPI, which was incorporated in 2006.

A perfect fitGPI’s efforts to grow food for the hungry

have produced some 47 gardens in Indianapo-lis, including Light of the World Christian Church, Fay Biccard Glick Community Center at Crooked Creek and Emmerich Manual

PeacefulGroundsLinda Proffitt’s center for sustainable agriculture

BY BETSY SHELDON

<< illustration by shelby kelley


High School’s STAR Academy for Agriculture and Environmental Science.

Major financial support for GPI has long been provided by the Efroymson Family Fund of the Central Indiana Community Foundation. Prof-fitt considers Jeremy Efroymson, the founda-tion’s vice chair, one of GPI’s informal founders.

In 2009, Proffitt and Efroymson traveled to Milwaukee to visit Growing Power, a not-for-profit organization that encourages and aids people and communities in growing their own food and building food security. The two met with founder and CEO Will Allen. The former pro-basketball player and son of a South Carolina sharecropper has been in the national spotlight during the past few years. His work garnered a genius grant from the John D. and Katherine T. McArthur Foundation, an invita-tion to the White House to join First Lady Michelle Obama in launching her “Let’s Move!” program, and — in May 2010 — a listing in Time magazine’s 100 World’s Most Influential People.

Education and training are key components of Allen’s mission, so to expand and spread the message of the Good Food Revolution, Grow-ing Power has established regional centers in the eastern half of the United States. The criteria for becoming one of Growing Power’s regional training centers are fairly stiff and include a clear demonstration of promoting and pursuing social justice.

“There’s only one Growing Power. Lots of people would like to work with them, but few are willing and able to go through the process. In that 2009 meeting, Mr. Allen indicated Global Peace Initiatives would fit as a regional training center for Growing Power, because of our commitment to social justice and strong leadership,” notes Proffitt. “That we’d grown food for six years just to feed the hungry dem-onstrated our commitment.”

“We also knew that we needed to go through a multi-step process in order to formalize this relationship,” she adds. Key GPI volunteers studied at Growing Power’s Commercial Urban Agriculture program. As a regional training center, Peaceful Grounds will not only offer local trainers, but will also bring in the star power of Will Allen as the lead trainer for Growing Power’s From the Ground Up workshop.

The next part of the process was finding a home for the center. Proffitt met Southport Mayor Dr. Robin Thoman at an Indianapolis Spirit & Place event in 2010. Southport was looking for a stakeholder to redevelop three acres of a blighted property that hadn’t been occupied for 10 years. Their meeting resulted in the signing of a 10-year lease in July 2011.

“We owe the existence of our site to the po-litical leadership of Dr. Thoman, who had the vision to bring the project to this city. He gets it,” Proffitt says. “Our center is a good match for Southport.”

Thoman agrees. “Peaceful Grounds is a perfect fit for our side of town. The south side has a strong agrarian past. We’ve been less fortunate in finding community gardens and local farm markets. The new center will fill this niche and bring people to Southport.”

From the ground up“From the ground up” also describes the

transformation of concrete plant to working farm. The lease may have been signed and sealed, but the property was far from ready to bring forth fruit in its first season. Prof-fitt knew that while the property had passed Phase I and II environmental testing, before they could grow food, they had to first create healthy, safe soil.

“This is so important, she says. “Many people in urban environments suffer because in their neighborhoods, safe soils may not be a certainty. Even the possibility that soil may be contaminated makes it a brownfield until tested otherwise.”

To grow on concrete, they would have to develop rich, nutrient-packed soil. So they made a livestock investment — of worms: 150 cubic meters of worms, to be exact. It’s not hard to believe that the three wind rows, each 1 meter high and 50 yards long, contain millions of worms grazing on nitrogen-rich compost (local food scraps) and hiding in carbon (wood mulch). In the process, they eat their body weight per day, cast what they eat, and double in number per month. The end product is a highly fertile growing medium. “Right now, we’re creating worms and worm castings just as fast as we can,” says Proffitt.

Proffitt is confident the farm center will fit right into the Southport community and serve it well. In fact, she reports that already resi-dents are excited about the worms. “They’re fascinated that there’s something wonderful going on here after 10 years of vacancy.” She expects neighbors won’t have any complaints. Unlike other farm livestock, “Worms don’t smell or make a lot of noise.”

Even community businesses are volunteer-ing to become part of the new food system. “We’re tapping into the waste stream,” says Proffitt.

For example, the farm’s compost counts on apple pumice from Adrian Orchards and wood chips from Ponder’s Tree Service — and EM Company delivers wood pallets that volun-teers are turning into tables, produce, stands and other useful structures for the farm.

People power More than business, financial and political

entities back the project, however. Peace-ful Grounds is truly a grassroots effort, with overwhelming support from volunteers. Prof-fitt recounts that from September through October 2011, more than 725 people, including individuals, university students, corporate employees and even military personnel, have contributed time to grow soil and clean up the property. She estimates the value of this in-kind volunteerism to be $250,000 for 2011.

“Peaceful Grounds is happening because volunteers are taking an interest. It’s a phe-nomenon. Once people come to the site and see what we’re doing, they get really excited. Everything we do is volunteer-driven. Our

PEACEFUL GROUNDS’ GRAND OPENING CONFERENCE

At Peaceful Grounds: A Center for Agriculture and Sustainable Living167 Van Dyke Street; Southport, IN [email protected]

MARCH 30-APRIL 1, 2012

March 30: Friday Private Reception with Will Allen - $75

March 31 - April 1: Saturday & Sunday full workshop includes all meals and keynote speech by Will Allen - $275

March 31: Saturday-only workshop and dinner with keynote speech by Will Allen - $175

March 31: Saturday Grand Opening Celebration Dinner only $50

April 1: Sunday-only workshop $120

Workshop Breakout Sessions: Composting For Safe Soils, Aquaponics, Hoop House Construction, Mushrooms, Kitchen Gardening, Kiln Building, Cheese Making, Community Project Design, You Can Can

http://www.globalpeaceinitiatives.net


efforts are a labor of love for many people.”

She recalls a volunteer day last fall: “We had 100 volunteers come to the farm, and the parking lot was completely full. For 10 years, the place was abandoned. Nothing happened, and then one day 50 to 60 cars are in the parking lot. Peaceful Grounds is creating a destination point in Southport.”

The peace-foodconnection

This phenomenon synchs well with Proffitt’s leadership approach, which is based on recognizing the miracles that come her way and then acting on them. Born in Indiana, Proffitt spent the latter half of her childhood in south Florida and returned to Indiana to go to college and then practice social work. “I never thought I would be farming, but when food pantries are empty, creative genius takes over. I’m proud to be an accidental farmer. It’s become a way for me to take care of the basic needs for people and teach them to garden and increase their capacity to help themselves.”

Food, she explains, is a prereq-uisite for peace. Summoning up Maslowian theory, she says that if people are hungry, conflict is likely. “When I talk about peace, I like to talk about what creates peace rather than the absence of peace. When basic needs are met, people can then fulfill their potential. There’s less likely to be conflict. Hunger prevented equals peace sustained.”

Proffitt doesn’t dwell on the fact that the world may have a long way to go to achieve this peace. Instead she continues her journey step by step and capital-izes on the growing awareness of and interest in food issues.

“I like this movement to buy lo-cal,” she says.” We’ve looked at the

world economy, and have realized that we have to support our own economy. Green industry, sustain-able living, gardening: These are all ways that we can strengthen our country.

“These are not new ideas. I would like to think that people will begin to grow more of their own food. During World War II, Indy had 44,000 victory gardens. I hope that more people can relearn how to grow their own food and, in doing so, promote an environment of peace.”

Learn by doingProffitt wants to have an

infrastructure in place as soon as possible, but for now growing soil is the priority. In the mean-time, contractors are provid-ing bids for the buildout of the café and commercial kitchen. “Peaceful Grounds Café will serve up healthy, local foods and our commercial kitchen can be

used for processing, conducting workshops, and serving small businesses such as food trucks or caterers.”

Proffitt checks off other fea-tures: a central market and food hub for exchange from farmers and restaurants, four-season growing environments, an indoor vertical farm, and an area for art-ists. “We have lots of intentions,” she says.

The embrace and pursuit of intentions informs her view of leadership and community activ-ism. “It’s almost like a pitch-in Thanksgiving dinner — where the event as a whole is based on what comes to the table. Every initiative is different, fluid. You learn how much you can do only by doing it.”

“I’m proud to be an accidental farmer.”

— Linda Proffitt

continued from pg. 11

^photo by mark lee

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When something as fundamental as the right of a community to decide whether it should raise local funds for local needs (i.e. transit) gets defeated in the Indiana legislature, it’s no wonder there is pessimism

about the forward-thinking abilities of Indi-ana’s legislature. But coming away with the view that the legislature is “hopeless” — or some have said, “useless” — is a sweeping, and wrong, conclusion.

If we attain a perspective of the obstacles we citizens face, while maintaining an awareness that citizen groups and their partners have indeed made some important advances despite the odds, we will have within us the power to fight another day for positive change.

The Indiana legislature, in the absence of strong backing of the governor or the legisla-tive leadership, is structured to make swift and far-reaching pro-economic and pro-environmental change difficult. Lawmaking is, overwhelmingly, a part-time position for most Indiana legislators, as the pay of $22,000 per year makes it impractical for most legislators to make this a full-time job.

Furthermore, legislators meet just three to four months per year, and generally share a legislative assistant with at least one law-maker. In this context of relatively meager decision-making time and resources, it is inherently challenging, from a policy and po-litical perspective, to make sweeping change in a single legislative session.

In part due to this frugal decision-making infrastructure, lobbyists for large corporate interests play an outsized role: they are looked to, and aim to fill, knowledge gaps that ought to be filled by a larger legislative research staff, or an independent, Indiana-focused

policy research group. And through healthy expense accounts, such lobbyists can foster relationships with legislators over a fancy meal or at a pricey sporting event that can compound that influence, and increase the existing influence their companies have had through campaign contributions.

This is not to suggest these corporate interests are inherently in conflict with the public interest, but those corporate interests are certainly focused, first and foremost, on advancing their sector’s specific interests.

Overlaying corporate influence over public policy is a situation where Indiana has elected a number of legislators who are ideologi-cally very critical of new safeguards for the environment— even if such safeguards might be necessary to tackle situations which federal law does not adequately address.

For citizens who want to see policy created that best reflects the broad public interest, the cards seem stacked against such a vision. But giving up on the legislature is absolutely not an option.

Giving up would mean an imbalanced set of perspectives that legislators get exposed to. Public interest groups play a crucial role in making sure public interest considerations are not sidelined to the focused interests of a specific industry.

In 2012, public interest groups like the Hoosier Environmental Council played an important role in helping to turn away a bill that would likely have had the effect of gut-ting many publicly available recycling and household hazardous waste collection pro-grams across Indiana — programs that are an important aspect environmental protection.

Public interest groups like the Indiana Wild-life Federation were essential to ending a bill that would have legalized deer hunting in fenced-in enclosures, which — beyond issues of humane

treatment of wildlife — would pose great risk to the health of deer populations, and in turn the Hoosier recreational economy, statewide.

It isn’t just that public interest groups — and the citizens they represent — help to shelve leg-islation that is adverse to the public good. Such groups have also shown a great capacity to be catalysts for forward-thinking conversations — which is a precondition to making far-reaching change in the interest of the public good.

The legislative committee rooms were standing room only, for example, for bills related to public transit funding and to a bill that would have provided affordable new options for small businesses to green their buildings while cutting their energy bills. Both ideas were first championed by public interest groups, and were eventually embraced by coalitions that involved businesses and associ-ated economic development groups.

Great societies — ones which simultaneously advance economic development and improved air, soil, and water quality, and greater levels of health and enhanced justice — do not become that way by some mechanical laws of economics.

Those societies are instead the result of the strenuous efforts of citizens, citizen groups, social entrepreneurs, civic-minded businesses, and public-spirited elected officials.

So the world we create in Indiana depends on us — on our efforts.

Sure, we may rest for a bit from the long hours engaging the legislature, but we must remain resilient about creating a new chapter in our history that those who follow us in the decades to come will be proud to read.

Jesse Kharbanda is the Executive Director of the Hoosier Environmental Council (www.hecweb.org, www.facebook.com/hecweb), Indiana’s largest environmental policy organization.

hoosier environmental council with Jesse Kharbanda

not giving upThe case for


Ask anyone why they love IU and love the Hoosier state. They usually mention the beautiful scenery, the neigh-borly spirit and our incred-ible work ethic. These make our state great and create a legacy we want to continue.

There’s a coal plant on the IU-Bloomington campus and consequently, students, staff and residents have been subject to the affects of its pollution for many decades. Coal is part of the legacy of our state, yet, with developments in technology, it’s disappointing that Indiana University, one of the leading educational institutions in the country, has no plans for a clean energy future.

I have been coordinating the Coal Free IU campaign since 2009, encouraging IU to make a commitment to move beyond coal to renew-able energy, a process which will take years to accomplish — especially since current plans are nonexistent.

Coal plants put us all at risk: Indiana has high rates of asthma and our waterways are contaminated with mercury. In short, the affects of pollution are costing Hoosiers money. Energy efficiency and renewable en-ergy is practical, necessary and cost effective.

During my internship with the United States Marine Corps Environmental Pro-gram, I developed strategic sustainability plans and performance metrics for military bases to reduce waste, water and energy consumption. The USMC realized that their reliance on fuel, batteries, water, and other resources was impacting the lives of marines on base, and leaving marines in deployment vulnerable to attack. Most of the casualties happening were related to the shipment of these resources to troops during combat. The team tasked with addressing this issue utilized solar panels, and other sustainable systems to bypass the need for convoys all to-gether. The USMC utilizes renewable energy as a method of reducing convey-related cau-salities and lightening the load for Marines

during deployments, as well as reducing costs and their carbon footprints on base.

I gained knowledge of the practical and beneficial application of renewable energy for Marines and their families, as well as local communities and businesses, and learned how essential it is to establish collaboration between these stakeholders in order to suc-cessfully launch these projects. The military recognizes that the growing feuds over re-sources like water and oil threaten the lives of many, and are correspondingly making strides in the development of sustainability.

In my sophomore year of college I went on a service trip to Honduras where we complet-ed a gravity water system. Community mem-bers worked alongside volunteers like me, creating access to clean water and teaching them how to maintain the system. They got free, clean water, but so much more: The village women and sometimes their children previously had walked miles to get water, leaving them little time to fulfill other chores. Building the system allowed these women to gain a new level of indepen-dence, opening up time for them and their children to pursue education during the day.

For the community as a whole it built neighborliness and instilled a sense of pride in all of the residents.

This is the power of sustainable develop-ment. This model is being mimicked in cities across our country, and proving to truly raise the economic tides of declining communities. Low interest loans (i.e. micro financing) and training are equipping communities with the skills they need to purchase and install solar panels to homes. This reduces the need for government aid and gives people marketable skills to gain employment. The nonprofit sector can play a major role in the reshaping, spurring these solutions — and I hope to be a part of this.

I firmly believe Indiana has the potential to be revitalized by a clean energy revolution, and that this is paramount to the health of Hoosiers.

Right now renewable energy and energy efficiency projects have been one of the most rapidly growing job sectors since the recession. As the price of renewable energy becomes more competitive, Hoosiers will gain jobs in manufacturing, installation and construction. Our state is becoming a magnet for innovation through accomplishments such as the geothermal project at Ball State.

This is driving activism from youth to advocate for clean energy solutions. The youth of our nation understand the unparalleled chal-lenges we will face in trying to maintain our re-sources, adapt to a changing climate, and foster a growing population. The urgency is clear.

A sustainability revolution is being expedited because we cannot wait, we must all be activists in our own capacity in the fight to sustain ourselves and preserve the resources and freedoms we are privileged to have. Being a Hoosier is really about being a good citizen, here and globally.

Megan Anderson is a senior at Indiana University majoring in Public Affairs, Nonprofit Management. She is a life-long resident of Bloomington. She hopes to pursue a career involving public service, advocacy, and sustainability domestically or internationally.

If you know of any college activists whom you feel should be featured in this regular column, con-tact Jim Poyser at [email protected].

COLLEGE ACTIVISMMegan Anderson, IU

I firmly believe that the continuation of our near complete reliance on coal as our primary energy source is one of the largest injustices to our social, ecological and economic welfare.


Brewing green… along I-65 north by rita kohn

The craft beer industry in Indiana has been synonymous with sustainability since John Hill opened Indiana’s first brewpub, Broad Ripple Brewpub, in 1990.

Throughout 2012, Indiana Living Green will report on the diverse methods of ‘brew-ing green,’ region by region. These practices include using locally sourced ingredients, packaging materials and brand merchandise, while giving spent grains, the cracked barley or wheat kernels left after being infused with hot water, to local farmers for re-use.

Other steps are often taken to cause the least carbon imprint. Old buildings are reno-vated, neighborhoods are rejuvenated and memorabilia is reused as décor.

Three Floyds, consistently lauded by Rate-beer as #1 nationally for the quality of their brews, equally has been in the forefront of good stewardship since its modest 1996 opening in Hammond as a small, family-owned distribu-tion brewery. The move to Munster in 2000 signaled growth and led to opening their pub in 2006, including planting a one-acre garden.

“The patriarch of the brewery, Dr. Michael Floyd, and the kitchen staff plan out herbs and vegetables for use in the pub,” says brewer Andrew Mason. The intent is to have “ultra fresh ingredients that we have total control over in their growth and harvesting.”

The rest of the ingredients come from area farmers. The changing daily menu reflects what is seasonally available.

Like other Indiana brewpubs, Three Floyds integrates its brews into food preparation, noted especially for a liver dish marinated in their robust Scottish ale “Robert the Bruce”

and for their unique “Hops for Hams.” “We typically use unfermented beer or

wort as a marinade because of the high sugar content,” explains Mason. “The kitchen cures whole hams using different rubs and spices. In this instance they pack a ham in salt, sugar and hops to impart a special flavor to the finished ‘prosciutto’ type ham.”

Crown Brewing, which opened in 2008 in Crown Point, might be operating in Indiana’s most “infamous” historic building — the old boiler house of Lake County’s former jail, which gained notoriety as the place from which John Dillinger escaped on March 3, 1934, thus providing the setting for the 2009 film Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp.

A unique practice by Crown Brewing is that while most spent grain across Indiana is given for raising livestock, theirs is used by a neigh-boring farmer to feed chickens and by vegetable growers in the St. John area as fertilizer. Brewer Steve Mazylewski describes the advantage: “Most fertilizer is manure-based so seeds are in poop. Grain is 100% organic so using spent grain as mulch in gardening helps to eliminate weeds.”

Crown Brewing purchases honey from Ron Brooks, a beekeeper in Portage, and like a host of other brewers is growing hops to supple-ment what comes from outside Indiana.

Locally sourced well water close to the banks of the Wabash River is a cornerstone of Chris Johnson’s philosophy of brewing. People’s Brew-ing Company opened in 2010 in an old ware-house near downtown Lafayette as a production brewery, featuring north German-style beers. Since water is about 90% of a beer’s ingredients, Johnson crafts his to fit the hard water readily

available. No energy is wasted changing it. “Lafayette has very good brewing water,

hard and full of good minerals,” states Johnson. “Local water can produce a very distinctive taste that is found in all beers from that area.”

Johnson adds: “We work with Purdue Student Farm. They take our trub (spent hops, proteins, etc. from the boiler kettle) for composting in their sustainable gardens. We started this practice of removing our trub to keep organics out of the city sewer. Spent mash goes to a local pig farmer “in trade for an occasional partypig.”

People’s adds another local twist by using lemon grass from a local farmer at Lafay-ette’s Farmer’s Market to give “a very clean, crisp, subtle character with a hint of lemon to Farmer’s Daughter Wheat Ale.”

CROWN BREWING COMPANY211 S. East St.Crown Point, IN 46307219-663-4545www.CrownBrewing.com PEOPLE’S BREWING COMPANY2006 N. 9th Street RoadLafayette, IN 47904765-714-2777www.peoplesbrew.com

THREE FLOYDS BREWING COMPANY9750 Indiana ParkwayMunster, IN 46321219-922-3565www.3floyds.com

^three floyds brewing companyphoto by scott bort

FOOD & BEVERAGE


BABY FAIRMarch 4, 1-4 p.m.This Bloomington event will be its third fair, making it, by our calculations, a toddler. Resources span the spectrum, from preg-nancy through the preschool years, through information, products and services. Expect some 50 exhibitors, plus live music, a toddler bouncy house and characters from WTIU’s The Cat In The Hat Knows A Lot About That! Cost is $5 admission, free for children under 12. The first 300 families will come away with a goody bag replete with coupons and gifts. Held at the Bloomington Convention Center. Info: bloomingtonbirth.org/babyfair.

BICYCLE DREAMSMarch 7, 7 p.m.Last year a group of daring bikers crossed 3,000 miles in ten days in an epic race across America. If you’re interested, but not quite up for that big a challenge, check out this documentary about the race at the Earth House Collective at 237 N. East St. Bicycle Dreams will showcase the triumphs and tragedies of the overwhelmingly huge race, and bring you all the drama — with-out the danger. Tickets are $15 at the door and $11 in advance at www.imathlete.com/events/bicycledreams.

AWAKENING THE DREAMERMarch 10, 8:30 a.m.Whether by the will of one God, many gods, or any assortment of spirits in between, the earth is ours to protect and take care of St. Luke’s Green Team and In-diana Creation Care Network of the United Methodist Church want to show Indy that spirituality and environmental conscious-ness go hand in hand. This event, held at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Indianapolis, will be promoting a way of life that is spiritually fulfilling, environ-mentally sustainable and socially just, with the hope of empowering locals to make a difference in their own communities. Info: awakeningthedreamer.org.

FLOWER AND PATIO SHOWMarch 10-18If landscaping takes your breath away, or if you’ve got a project in the works, stop by the West Pavilion and Expo Hall at the Indiana State Fairgrounds for the annual Flower and Patio Show. There you can talk with hundreds of experts in the fine art of outdoor living, tour more than 40 Showcas-es and exhibits, and learn the tips and tricks for making your backyard (and practically every other outdoor accoutrement) the best it can be. Admission is $12. Info: indianaflowerandpatioshow.com.

GOING GREEN FESTIVALMarch 16, 9:30 a.m.; March 17, 11 a.m.The Indiana State Museum is proud to present its annual Going Green Festival. Lots of games and crafts mean that there’s plenty to do for the whole family. Adults can learn tips and tricks for saving money while you save the planet, while kids can learn en-

vironmentally friendly habits, and learn how to make smart decisions for themselves and the world they live in. Admission to the Fes-tival is covered by the normal entrance fee for the museum. Info: indianamuseum.org.

IWFM BICYCLE PARADEMarch 17, 11 a.m.Celebrate this St. Patrick’s Day by tricking out your bicycle with the snazziest decora-tions you can get your hands on, and meet in the City Market Courtyard for the parade! This event isn’t just for triathletes — they’ll ride from Market Street, around the Circle and back. The $5 entry fee will go to the Eat Well Initiative, which lets people use food stamps to buy fresh food at the Farmer’s Market. The parade’s just one of many fit-ness fundraisers hosted by the IWFM, Grow-ing Places Indy and the Bike Hub YMCA. Info: indywinterfarmersmarket.blogspot.com.

WE ARE CITY FILM SERIES: WITH MY OWN TWO WHEELS March 22, 7 p.m.The Toby at the Indianapolis Museum of Art will be showing a documentary to make you rethink the way you look at your bicycle. With My Own Two Wheels follows the lives of five people around the world and exam-ines how their bicycles changed their lives, by helping bring in an income, by helping a doctor reach his patients, and by giving a struggling teenager a chance at an educa-tion. Bicycles are slowly changing the world — how can they change Indy? Tickets are $5 for the public and $3 for IMA members. Info: imamuseum.org/film.

EARTH HOURMarch 31, 8:30 p.m.Turn it off people… turn it all off! For one hour each year, the entire planet par-ticipates in this event. Electricity off; CO2 emissions down; consciousness raised. Get your candles ready and mark your calendar. As we go to press, Indiana Living Green is planning a launch party for March 31 at City Market. Keep an eye on our site for updates.earthhour.org

INDIANA ARTISAN MARKETPLACEMarch 31-April 1The Expo Hall at the Indiana State Fair-grounds will be hosting the second annual Indiana Artisan Marketplace, where you can partake in unique artisan food and wine, lo-cal art, and live Indiana music. The Market-place will host more than 125 artisans from Indiana and 75 from Kentucky, to showcase a whole spectrum of crafts from beekeep-ing to jewelry design to woodworking, and everything in between. Admission is $10 for adults, free or children under 7, and free for volunteers — but make sure to submit your application by March 9 to volunteer! Info: IndianaArtisan.org.

Got an event? Send to [email protected].

MARCH EVENTS


ASK RENEEGREEN MARKETPLACE

Homemade & Fair Trade

Lanterns, luminaries and can-dles handcrafted from recycled wine and beer bottles. Our creations are perfect for your home, offi ce or as that unique gift that your friends and fam-ily will remember for years to come. Gift ideas starting at just $6. It’s recycling, re-imagined!

Organic cotton sheets, towels, kitchen linens. Also recycled glass and paper items. Excel-lent place for green wedding registry. Brands include Coyu-chi, Green Glass, In2Green, bambu and more!www.honeysucklehome.com/

Pets

Esoteric Healing with L ynne Hirschman. Remote 30-min-ute sessions allow your pet to receive treatment without leaving home. Since 1998. Call 317-205-9020.

Health & Wellness

Barbeaux Formulaire is pas-sionate about aiding their cli-ents skin conditions such as: eczema, dry skin and prob-lematic reactions to medical aliments through the use of or-ganic spa treatments. Barbeaux offers a hand-poured jojoba lo-tion, bath powder and olive oil lip balm. Call 1-800-738-1003 or visit barbeauxformulaire.com.

Esoteric HealingManual Therapies including craniosacral therapy . Eso-teric Healing. Serving clients since 1985. L ynne Hirschman, MS, PT . 317-205-9020 or [email protected]

Your Body and WaterIonized Micro-clustered alkaline waterNEGATIVE “ORP” a very po-tent antioxidantWatch: KANGEN demo on YouTube.com, thenCall 317-370-9994 for a free trial

Local Farms

Community Supported AgricultureLocal Fruit, Produce and EggsMake a change to 100% local farm produce this seasonCertifi ed Naturally [email protected] Family Farm1949 Sunny Acres DriveBedford, INChemical free, custom grown heirloom and European fruits and vegetables for professional chefs. Produce of exceptional quality and fl avor for the home chef. CSA shares available - summer/winter.

http://www.localharvest.org/heartland-family-farm-M9428

www.harvestmoonfl owerfarm.comSpecialty grown, local gorgeous fl owers for special events and weddings.Sustainably and Organically grown & Professionally ar-ranged INDIANA’S FINEST INDEED!!

Products & Services

EARN MONEY, Being Green!with Shaklee “Get Clean”Non-toxic, Non-polluting cleaners.Creating Healthier Lives since 1956.317-695-1047, [email protected]

Ecological Babieswww.ecologicalbabies.comOffering retail sales of cloth dia-pers and accessories, gift sets, baby slings, and natural parent-ing products. W e provide one-on-one diaper consultations, lo-cal workshops, and on-line gift registries.

Olry PhotographyEco-Friendly Wedding, Engage-ment & Event PhotographersProud to be certifi ed members of Greener Photography’ s Leadership Circlewww.olryphotography.com

Organic Foods

Endangered Species Chocolatewww.chocolatebar.com/Endangered Species Choco-late is committed to providing premium, ethically traded, all-natural and organic chocolate bars. 10% of net profi ts are donated to support species, habitat and humanity . Indulge in a cause.

Litterally Divine Toffee and TrufflesNatural chocolates locally made with organic and locally sourced ingredientswww.litterallydivinetoffee.com

Community

Orchard in BloomWhere Gardens, Art and Community Grow TogetherApril 26-29, 2012

Gate admission is $12. Chil-dren 14 and under are free. Three-day passes are $15.

For additional information & schedule of events, go to www.orchardinbloom.org or call 317.251.9253.

To advertise in Green Marketplace, contact Robert Barnes at 317-808-4611 or [email protected]

Q: Is there a way to recycle shoes that are worn beyond the point of donating them to Goodwill? I need to clean out my closet but would prefer an alternative to the landfill.

Thanks,Georgia

There’s an Indiana nonprofit that is a shoo-in for your support! Changing Footprints, in Rushville, IN, collects and distributes shoes to disaster- or poverty-stricken areas here in our state, throughout the country and around the world. They have drop-off locations at various shoe stores in Indy – Blue Mile, Goodman Shoes, Yates Stride Rite, and Keen Children’s Shoes – and they love working with groups to host shoe drives. According to their web site, 70% of their donated shoes stay in the U.S., with the majority going directly to local communities. www.changingfootprints.com

If you’re giving a pair of athletic shoes the boot, Nike Grind will put them to good use. They recycle your sneakers into surfaces, like running tracks, playgrounds and carpet padding. The Nike Factory Store in Edinburgh will take old shoes, but you can also drop them off at any of the Changing Footprints locations as shoes they deem unusable are sent to Nike. nikereuseashoe.com

I know you’re concerned about your shoes being worn beyond such donation, but I encourage you to give them (or other re-use organizations, like Goodwill, Salvation Army, Amvets, etc.) the opportunity to make that call. You and I may have no concept of what “worn” means to someone who lives on a dirt floor or has lost everything to tragedy. And even the misfit shoes that never take another step can still be sold to secondary markets to benefit the program.

Green Piece Indy and RecycleForce are adding old shoes to the items they will accept during Rush Hour Recycling. Visit www.greenpieceindy.com and click Rush Hour Recy-cling for event details.

Q: I’ve seen the term CSA before, but don’t understand. What’s a CSA?

Signed,Numbskull

Ah, my favorite topic, Numbskull. Food. But not just any food. Beautiful, seasonal, locally-grown produce.

CSA is short for Community Supported Agriculture. Basi-cally, you purchase a share of a farmer’s crop in early spring, allowing the farmer to plan accordingly and giving them a little seed money (get it? seed money?). In return, you re-ceive weekly containers of fresh, seasonal food throughout the growing season (usually at least 20 weeks).

CSAs have been known to include everything from herbs and flowers to all kinds of produce to eggs, dairy, honey, bread and meat. Most farmers have half and whole share CSAs available and prices range from $400-$800 for the season (about $20-30 per week). LocalHarvest.org is a good re-source for finding a CSA that offers the products and pick-up location that works best for you.

What I like most about a CSA is it challenges you to use produce you might not ordinarily pick up at the store – and most CSA farmers are really good about sharing their favorite recipes. Naturally, the other thing I like about CSAs is the food travels such a short distance from farm to plate, which means less carbon emissions and more nutrients! (If you didn’t already know, produce often travels 1,500 or more miles to get to a typical grocery store. Meanwhile, produce begins to lose nutrients as soon as it’s harvested.)

Are you seriously still reading this? Shouldn’t you be ordering your 2012 CSA?

Got a question for Renee? [email protected]

Place your adfor as little as

$20Add a logo for $15

Frequency discounts available!

ContactRobert Barnes317-808-4611

or [email protected]


1. According to researchers, what is “driving fish crazy”?

__ a. Sexy womanta rays__ b. Disoriented sharks__ c. Dissolved CO2__ d. Methane chimneys__ e. Fishermen

2. How did climate scientist Michael Mann characterize the struggle between scientists and deniers?

__ a. “Jets vs. Sharks”__ b. “An internecine feud”__ c. “Dark Ages vs. The Enlightened”__ d. “David vs. Goliath”__ e. “A street fight”

3. What does famous pro snowboarder Jeremy Jones think about climate change?

__ a. It’s a hoax.__ b. It’s dope AND dialed in!__ c. It’s real and moving fast.__ d. It complicates the chicken salad air.__ e. It increases the melancholy.

4. What disturbing phenomenon have UK scientists discovered in the Arctic Ocean?

__ a. Russian scientists__ b. A huge dome of freshwater__ c. Predatory (i.e. conscious) icebergs__ d. Dolphins mating with porpoises__ e. Whales mating with sharks

5. What have researchers discovered is a symptom of lifelong exposure to lead?

__ a. Stiff limbs__ b. Hives__ c. “Metal tongue” syndrome__ d. Pessimism__ e. Vulnerability to magnets

6. From what is Yasuni National Park, AKA “the lungs of the world,” under threat?

__ a. Oil drilling__ b. Ebola__ c. Coal mining__ d. Cigarettes__ e. Yeti

7. How is government changing the planting zones map on the back of seed packets?

__ a. Illustrating the map in reds and blues to reflect political conflict.

__ b. Remaking the map to reflect climate change.__ c. Illustrating the map with cherubic angels.__ d. Placing subliminal images of sex in the map.__ e. Putting skulls and crossbones all over the

maps.

8. What does a US expert panel studying nanomaterials recommend?

__ a. An overall nanotechnology ban__ b. Nanobots should bring them coffee, on

demand__ c. Full steam ahead: hypertiny is in!__ d. Time to panic, both humongously and

microscopically__ e. A review of the possible risks

9. In what way does Alaska’s DNR chief want to change the state’s mission statement?

__ a. He wants to replace the term “restore” with “exploit.”

__ b. He wants the mission statement written in Inuit.

__ c. He wants to remove the terms “conserve” and “enhance,” leaving only “develop.”

__ d. He wants to include a reference to “Russia’s startling proximity.”

__ e. He wants the mission statement “brought to you by BP.”

10. What is killing off alarming numbers of mammals in the Everglades?

__ a. Hunters__ b. Climate change__ c. Drought__ d. Pythons__ e. Water much too brackish

Correct Answers: 1. (c): Dissolved CO2 (Nature Climate Change, via EPOCA); 2. (e): “A street fight” (London Daily Telegraph); 3. (c): It’s real and moving fast. (Mother Jones); 4. (b): A huge dome of freshwater (BBC); 5. (d): Pessimism (Environmental Health News); 6. (a): Oil drilling (BBC); 7. (b): Remaking the map to reflect climate change. (London Guard-ian); 8. (e): A review of the possible risks (New York Times); 9. (c): He wants to remove the terms “conserve” and “enhance,” leaving only “develop.” (Associated Press); 10. (d): Pythons (Associated Press)

THE PANIQuiz

The ApocaDocs’ Pre-Apocalypse News & Info Quiz (PANIQuiz) tests your knowledge of current environmental news. Brought to you by the ApocaDocs, Michael Jensen and Jim Poyser. Check your results (at the bottom), then see www.apocadocs.com to find out more.

Can you smell it? The earth is begin-ning to smell like spring! Gardeners are champing at the bit to get back in the gardens. WHOA, patience is needed in spring.

• Working soil when it’s wet can destroy all the work you’ve done to create a loamy, healthy soil. Soil should be friable - able to be easily crumbled into small loose pieces. Digging in wet soil can break down its structure, creating hard brick-like lumps. How do you know when soil can be worked without dam-age? Squeeze a handful. If the soil crumbles, it’s good to work. If it stays in a tight clump, don’t work it — give it more time to drain. Soil that contains lots of organic matter (leaves, com-post, green manure/cover crops) will drain more easily and warm up more quickly in spring.

• It’s heating up! Considering the standard by which gardeners know which plants will survive, a new USDA Hardiness Zone Map is out, and the times (and temperature zones), they are a-changin’. On the old maps, much of Indiana, including Indianapolis and Bloomington were part of Zone 5 (temperatures to -20 F.) with only the lower third in Zone 6. Currently, about half the state (including Indianapolis), is now labeled the warmer Zone 6 with “average annual extreme minimal” win-ter temperatures falling to -10 F. Quite a warm up! While at first we gardeners may see some positive in the warmer winters — finding more perennials that survive — it also forebodes a similar increase in summer heat. Who says climate change is a hoax? To see the dramatic new data, visit www.planthar-diness.ars.usda.gov/PHZMWeb

• Not a bird, not a plane, it’s a frog! Occasionally people mistake the melodious calls of frogs for bird songs. Listen for Indiana’s Chorus Frogs and Spring Peepers this month. They are often the first to call. Gardeners welcome frogs and toads not only for their pleasant calls, but also for their diets of spiders, small snails and in-sects. Visit the DNR’s website to find the Indiana’s 17 species of frogs. www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/3325.htm

• Make garden plans now. Plant cool crops: lettuce, radish, peas, spinach and mache (also called lamb’s lettuce or corn salad). The last frost-free date for central Indiana is around May 5. Be patient!

Got a gardening question or a tip to share? Contact Lynn at [email protected]

GARDENING WITH NATURE

by Lynn Jenkins

Patienceis a needed virtue


No, it’s not the chorus to a country mu-sic song, but after the Jan. 25 release of the long-awaited update to the U.S. Department of Agriculture Plant Hardiness Zone Map, it probably could be. This was the first update to the map in 22 years, the last release having occurred in 1990.

For those who’ve never seen a zone map, think of it as North America covered with big color-coded bands that represent the average of the lowest temperature recorded each winter over a given period of time. For those of us who farm or garden, “The Map” is a big deal. It’s the document we live by to tell us whether the seeds and plants we put into the ground are likely to flourish, or whether we should move on to growing peanuts where we’d always grown pole beans before.

I must admit that the 2012 revision wasn’t what I was expecting. For several years now, I’d grown used to seeing a map that had shifted hardiness zones sharply northward from the 1990 USDA map. Zone 6, formerly covering Kentucky and parts of Tennessee, for example, now had moved up over all of Indiana and even most of Michigan.

This map appeared mostly in seed catalogs and almanacs, but no one ever cited its source. It became so widespread that I jumped to the

mistaken conclusion that it was a draft version that someone had leaked from the USDA.

Turns out that it was actually produced in 2006 by the Arbor Day Foundation, a not-for-profit whose mission it is to repopulate America with trees. They probably got tired of waiting so long for the government to issue an update, so they went ahead and published their own.

But the Arbor Day Foundation’s 2006 map suffered from a common flaw: its creators drew far-reaching conclusions from timeframes that were probably way too short. The 14 years on which the Arbor Day folks based their map in-cluded the 1990s, one of the warmest decades on record. They weren’t alone, however.

It turns out that the USDA had made the same mistake with their 1990 map, but with the opposite effect: the 14 years on which that map was based were skewed heavily to the cool side by the unusually chilly 1970s. (www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/2008-04-23-gardening-map_N.htm.)

So what’s a farmer to believe, and how reli-able is the 2012 USDA map?

While it shows a continent much warmed from 1990 map, the changes aren’t nearly as drastic as those portrayed by the Arbor Day map. And while I hate to put much trust in anything the government tells me, the 2012

map does have two major factors in its favor: the USDA’s research scientists made up for past sins by using 30 years of data to create the new map, a more reliable time frame than 14 years by a long shot. Secondly, they enlisted the cooperation of the PRISM research group at Oregon State University, a team of folks so accomplished in measuring and mapping weather and climate data that their collective brain power must surely set the air on fire whenever they enter a room together.

It wouldn’t be the first time a government agency has borrowed credibility, but this time, it borrowed from the right place.

What does all this mean for my little farm? The high-tech functionality of the 2012 map lets us zoom in by zip code, a big plus, since it’s hard to change the world until you know what’s happening in your own backyard.

Since 1990, Boone County has slipped to the warm side, but remains officially in Zone 5. The Zone 6 line skirts so precipitously close to my land, though, that it’s really a moot point.

I might have started my farming career in Zone 5, but it’s a pretty sure bet it won’t end there.

While I won’t be growing avocados anytime soon, you might well see me hauling arti-chokes to market by the time the next zone map is released.

Just a Zone 5 farmer in a Zone 6 world

the last row with Maria Smietana


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